Fremont, Neb.
Posted: 9:52 PM Jul 29, 2008
Last Updated: 9:29 AM Jul 30, 2008
Reporter: Alicia Myers
Email Address: alicia.myers@kolnkgin.com
Fremont Immigration Hearing
Nearly 1,000 people turned out in Fremont Tuesday night, voicing their opinions on a proposed illegal immigrant ban.
The Fremont city council has spent the past few weeks weighing in on the issue that could outlaw things like hiring or renting to illegal immigrants.
Fremont business leaders say they worry a new ordinance targeting illegal immigration could hurt the community. That is exactly how hundreds of residents feel.
Some council members say it is an issue that needs to be looked at for the sake of some supportive residents.
The city council wasn't supposed to vote until the end of August but decided to vote Tuesday night. They were deadlocked at 4-4 before Mayor Don "Skip" Edwards voted against the ordinance.
Testimony took more than three hours. Near the beginning of the testimonies, the length of the line into Fremont High School's auditorium was something you'd normally see waiting outside a headliner concert. Instead, the line was full of people fighting for their rights, as well as their community's well-being, at Fremont's Tuesday evening city council immigration hearing.
"We're here in peace. We want to show them that we want to live in this community," said Gabby Ayala, Fremont resident.
Ayala has been a legal U.S. citizen for many years, but when she came to the states, she said it was a different story.
"I was an illegal immigrant," Ayala said. "I know it's hard. It's scary to go out, and think that people are looking at you because they're wondering if you're legal or not. Thankfully now, I'm a U.S. citizen, and that's why I'm supporting the illegal immigration."
Ayala said the ordinance would tear the city apart, by making it illegal to harbor, hire, or rent to any illegal immigrants.
City Council Chair, Gary Bolton, said while he is not a fan of the local city ordinance, something at the federal level needs to be done.
"Without a doubt, nearly everyone, whether you're in favor of the ordinance or opposed to the ordinance, I think there are those that feel we have an immigration problem in this country," Bolton said.
"I think the country needs to be legalized. Everybody that's supposed to be here should be here, and the rest should leave," said Al Knoell, Fremont resident.
Those opposed say an ordinance like this could divide the city in a negative way.
"We're also concerned that the ordinance would lead to increased discrimination to all immigrants, not just undocumented immigrants, but all immigrants as well as other minorities," said Norm Pflanz, Nebraska Appleseed.
As hundreds gathered, sharing their opinions, Ayala hoped for the best for her community.
"I hope the government does something, and accomplishes something, and gives everybody the chance to become legal in this country," said Ayala.
KOLN KGIN
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Immigrant problem is bigger than Fremont, mayor says
BY JOHN FERAK AND CINDY GONZALEZ
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITERS
Mayor receives standing ovation: Click here to watch the video
FREMONT, Neb. - Five-term Mayor Donald "Skip" Edwards says illegal immigration is a huge problem, but he doesn't think his small city is the place to try to solve an issue facing the entire country.
Fremont police watched over the crowd during the hearing.
At about 11:30 p.m. Tuesday, Edwards cast the pivotal vote to break a 4-4 Fremont City Council tie and defeat a proposed city ordinance aimed at driving away illegal immigrants by punishing landlords and businesses who rented to and hired them.
"Casting the vote was very emotional for me. I sincerely mean that we do have a problem in this country with illegal immigration," Edwards, 69, said today.
The vote followed a hearing that drew more than 1,000 people to the Fremont High School auditorium, where the council heard impassioned testimony for and against the proposal.
Edwards said that he strongly opposed illegal immigration and that the vote had weighed heavily on him. But he made his decision after consulting with several law firms.
"Trying to enforce this type of ordinance would be very expensive, hundreds of thousands of dollars, possibly millions," he said. "I am of the opinion this is a federal law. I vote no."
Boos from an audience that shrank as the night wore on were drowned out by a standing ovation cheering Edwards' vote.
When the tense meeting ended, the slender, gray-haired Edwards sat for several minutes in a classroom, recuperating from the emotionally charged session that had lasted nearly five hours.
Some City Council members and other city officials offered him words of comfort, encouragement and congratulations.
Afterward, the mayor and council members received police escorts to their cars. Edwards said today that he isn't fearful for his safety because of the vote.
Fremont, a town of about 25,000 northwest of Omaha, has seen its Latino population increase in recent years due largely to the presence of meatpacking jobs. The Latino population in the 4,600-student Fremont Public Schools has been estimated at 15 percent.
Landlords leasing to illegal immigrants would have faced a $100 fine. Under special licensing requirements - which would have applied to every renter regardless of heritage - an occupant would have had to buy a $5 occupancy license, issued only after local police had verified immigration status.
The crowd at Tuesday night's council meeting came from Omaha, Lincoln, Columbus and elsewhere in Nebraska to speak on what would be the state's first city-driven proposal to force out illegal immigrants.
The proposal had elevated tensions, which was reflected by a heavy law enforcement presence - some 50 officers from the Fremont and Omaha Police Departments, the Nebraska State Patrol and the Dodge County Sheriff's Office - and strict procedures.
The auditorium was swept by a bomb-sniffing dog before the public filed in two lines past portable and hand-held metal detectors.
Those testifying lined up at two separate microphones according to their position on the issue and took turns speaking for and against, with comments limited to three minutes each.
More than a dozen officers were scattered throughout the auditorium and, at times, scolded people if they applauded or otherwise tried to react to a speaker.
Except for an elderly man wearing a veterans cap - who was kicked out by police after he yelled, "Bring it on!" - the hearing was generally orderly.
People began arriving before 5 p.m., and the last of 75 speakers finished about 11 p.m.
Councilman Gary Bolton, who voted against the ordinance, said he, too, was frustrated with the failure of federal officials to enforce immigration laws. But he said the ordinance would be costly to the city.
Councilman Scott Getzschman said many of his constituents asked to put an end to the proposal and the heightened tensions it had raised in Fremont.
The debate also brought e-mails, letters and talk show requests from across the country.
Also voting against the ordinance were council members John Anderson and Jon Gilfry.
Voting in favor, without comment, were Charlie Janssen, Mary Marsh and Scott Schaller. Bob Warner, who proposed the ordinance, said he believed the ordinance could be enforced.
During the hearing, supporters of the ordinance cited crime, disease and abuse of public assistance as reasons that the City Council should pass the ordinance.
"Yes, I'm frustrated," said Susan Smith of Fremont, contending that illegal immigrants are the main cause of disease coming into the United States.
Robert Hollister of Omaha wore a T-shirt that said, "Illegal aliens harm U.S. economy and ecology," and his wife wore one that said, 'Where's the fence?"
"The federal government's dropped the ball," Robert Hollister told the council. "The Unicameral's dropped the ball."
John Wiegert, a Fremont resident who teaches in Yutan, said the ordinance was needed to alleviate a burden on schools and emergency rooms.
"Racism has nothing to do with this ordinance," Wiegert said. "This ordinance is about what is legal and what is illegal. If the federal government is not going to watch out for us, then we need to watch out for ourselves."
Others questioned why their city should pay to defend an ordinance that attorneys have told the council is unconstitutional and unenforceable.
Several said that they were embarrassed by the proposal and that it made Fremont look intolerant.
"We do not feel this ordinance will benefit Fremont in any way," said Christy Fiala, a Fremont native who said she represented a coalition of local churches, schools and social service agencies. "Rather it will negatively impact Fremont."
Severiano Franco of Lincoln said the council could distinguish itself by enacting the ordinance. "You'll be No. 1," he said, "You'll be the biggest bigoted, racist city in the state."
Stacey Escobedo of Fremont said she and her husband have spent $7,000 and seven years trying to remedy his immigration status. Her husband, who entered the United States on a legal visa that has since expired, has adopted her children.
"I'm very irritated," she said. "This ordinance is disgusting."
Before the mayor's tiebreaking vote, Fremont City Attorney Dean Skokan informed everyone that by law, Edwards could abstain from voting and effectively kill the ordinance, which required a majority vote to pass.
Edwards said that he had a sense heading into the meeting that council might deadlock.
"I didn't know absolutely for sure that it would wind up 4-to-4, but I knew in my mind there might be a chance. Yes, it was unusual, because our council usually has a pretty good consensus on issues . . . But you just get those gut feelings," he said today.
"It was a tough issue and a tough decision to make. But I always pray about it and try to look at the whole picture and how it will affect Fremont," he said.
Edwards, now in his 20th year as mayor, said he wasn't concerned about political fallout.
"I never pay attention to that," he said. "I love this community dearly, and that's I why I continue to do this job."
Getzschman said Edwards had showed true courage and leadership by casting a vote when he wasn't required to do so.
"He's a very grounded person, and Skip is one of the most dedicated civic leaders in Fremont. He literally eats, drinks and sleeps Fremont, Nebraska," the council member said. "He has a true passion for his job. He prayed, he soul-searched and made a decision that he felt in his own mind was in the best interest of Fremont."
World-Herald Video:
• Vote on the ordinance
http://content.omaha.com/media/maps/video/072908vote
• Council member Bob Warner defends the measure
http://content.omaha.com/media/maps/video/072908warner
• Public input during the hearing
http://content.omaha.com/media/maps/video/072908kcpublicspeaks
• Differing views outside the hearing
http://content.omaha.com/media/maps/video/072908fremont
Source: Omaha
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITERS
Mayor receives standing ovation: Click here to watch the video
FREMONT, Neb. - Five-term Mayor Donald "Skip" Edwards says illegal immigration is a huge problem, but he doesn't think his small city is the place to try to solve an issue facing the entire country.
Fremont police watched over the crowd during the hearing.
At about 11:30 p.m. Tuesday, Edwards cast the pivotal vote to break a 4-4 Fremont City Council tie and defeat a proposed city ordinance aimed at driving away illegal immigrants by punishing landlords and businesses who rented to and hired them.
"Casting the vote was very emotional for me. I sincerely mean that we do have a problem in this country with illegal immigration," Edwards, 69, said today.
The vote followed a hearing that drew more than 1,000 people to the Fremont High School auditorium, where the council heard impassioned testimony for and against the proposal.
Edwards said that he strongly opposed illegal immigration and that the vote had weighed heavily on him. But he made his decision after consulting with several law firms.
"Trying to enforce this type of ordinance would be very expensive, hundreds of thousands of dollars, possibly millions," he said. "I am of the opinion this is a federal law. I vote no."
Boos from an audience that shrank as the night wore on were drowned out by a standing ovation cheering Edwards' vote.
When the tense meeting ended, the slender, gray-haired Edwards sat for several minutes in a classroom, recuperating from the emotionally charged session that had lasted nearly five hours.
Some City Council members and other city officials offered him words of comfort, encouragement and congratulations.
Afterward, the mayor and council members received police escorts to their cars. Edwards said today that he isn't fearful for his safety because of the vote.
Fremont, a town of about 25,000 northwest of Omaha, has seen its Latino population increase in recent years due largely to the presence of meatpacking jobs. The Latino population in the 4,600-student Fremont Public Schools has been estimated at 15 percent.
Landlords leasing to illegal immigrants would have faced a $100 fine. Under special licensing requirements - which would have applied to every renter regardless of heritage - an occupant would have had to buy a $5 occupancy license, issued only after local police had verified immigration status.
The crowd at Tuesday night's council meeting came from Omaha, Lincoln, Columbus and elsewhere in Nebraska to speak on what would be the state's first city-driven proposal to force out illegal immigrants.
The proposal had elevated tensions, which was reflected by a heavy law enforcement presence - some 50 officers from the Fremont and Omaha Police Departments, the Nebraska State Patrol and the Dodge County Sheriff's Office - and strict procedures.
The auditorium was swept by a bomb-sniffing dog before the public filed in two lines past portable and hand-held metal detectors.
Those testifying lined up at two separate microphones according to their position on the issue and took turns speaking for and against, with comments limited to three minutes each.
More than a dozen officers were scattered throughout the auditorium and, at times, scolded people if they applauded or otherwise tried to react to a speaker.
Except for an elderly man wearing a veterans cap - who was kicked out by police after he yelled, "Bring it on!" - the hearing was generally orderly.
People began arriving before 5 p.m., and the last of 75 speakers finished about 11 p.m.
Councilman Gary Bolton, who voted against the ordinance, said he, too, was frustrated with the failure of federal officials to enforce immigration laws. But he said the ordinance would be costly to the city.
Councilman Scott Getzschman said many of his constituents asked to put an end to the proposal and the heightened tensions it had raised in Fremont.
The debate also brought e-mails, letters and talk show requests from across the country.
Also voting against the ordinance were council members John Anderson and Jon Gilfry.
Voting in favor, without comment, were Charlie Janssen, Mary Marsh and Scott Schaller. Bob Warner, who proposed the ordinance, said he believed the ordinance could be enforced.
During the hearing, supporters of the ordinance cited crime, disease and abuse of public assistance as reasons that the City Council should pass the ordinance.
"Yes, I'm frustrated," said Susan Smith of Fremont, contending that illegal immigrants are the main cause of disease coming into the United States.
Robert Hollister of Omaha wore a T-shirt that said, "Illegal aliens harm U.S. economy and ecology," and his wife wore one that said, 'Where's the fence?"
"The federal government's dropped the ball," Robert Hollister told the council. "The Unicameral's dropped the ball."
John Wiegert, a Fremont resident who teaches in Yutan, said the ordinance was needed to alleviate a burden on schools and emergency rooms.
"Racism has nothing to do with this ordinance," Wiegert said. "This ordinance is about what is legal and what is illegal. If the federal government is not going to watch out for us, then we need to watch out for ourselves."
Others questioned why their city should pay to defend an ordinance that attorneys have told the council is unconstitutional and unenforceable.
Several said that they were embarrassed by the proposal and that it made Fremont look intolerant.
"We do not feel this ordinance will benefit Fremont in any way," said Christy Fiala, a Fremont native who said she represented a coalition of local churches, schools and social service agencies. "Rather it will negatively impact Fremont."
Severiano Franco of Lincoln said the council could distinguish itself by enacting the ordinance. "You'll be No. 1," he said, "You'll be the biggest bigoted, racist city in the state."
Stacey Escobedo of Fremont said she and her husband have spent $7,000 and seven years trying to remedy his immigration status. Her husband, who entered the United States on a legal visa that has since expired, has adopted her children.
"I'm very irritated," she said. "This ordinance is disgusting."
Before the mayor's tiebreaking vote, Fremont City Attorney Dean Skokan informed everyone that by law, Edwards could abstain from voting and effectively kill the ordinance, which required a majority vote to pass.
Edwards said that he had a sense heading into the meeting that council might deadlock.
"I didn't know absolutely for sure that it would wind up 4-to-4, but I knew in my mind there might be a chance. Yes, it was unusual, because our council usually has a pretty good consensus on issues . . . But you just get those gut feelings," he said today.
"It was a tough issue and a tough decision to make. But I always pray about it and try to look at the whole picture and how it will affect Fremont," he said.
Edwards, now in his 20th year as mayor, said he wasn't concerned about political fallout.
"I never pay attention to that," he said. "I love this community dearly, and that's I why I continue to do this job."
Getzschman said Edwards had showed true courage and leadership by casting a vote when he wasn't required to do so.
"He's a very grounded person, and Skip is one of the most dedicated civic leaders in Fremont. He literally eats, drinks and sleeps Fremont, Nebraska," the council member said. "He has a true passion for his job. He prayed, he soul-searched and made a decision that he felt in his own mind was in the best interest of Fremont."
World-Herald Video:
• Vote on the ordinance
http://content.omaha.com/media/maps/video/072908vote
• Council member Bob Warner defends the measure
http://content.omaha.com/media/maps/video/072908warner
• Public input during the hearing
http://content.omaha.com/media/maps/video/072908kcpublicspeaks
• Differing views outside the hearing
http://content.omaha.com/media/maps/video/072908fremont
Source: Omaha
Right-Wing Pathologies Revealed After Adkisson Shooting at Unitarian Church
By John Dolan, AlterNet. Posted July 29, 2008.
When Free Republic forum posters learned that the gunman was from their own demographic, out came the conservative madness.
A classic drama full of hatred, ignorance and irony played out this week in the forum section of right-wing Web site Free Republic, as "Freepers" tried to make sense of a church shooting in Tennessee that killed two parishioners and wounded many others. The grotesque irony of the FR discussions is that, after early posters had indulged all their bigoted guesses about the identity of the killer, they found out the gunman was actually straight out of their own demographic: a 59-year-old white man named Jim Adkisson, who left a four-page letter ranting against liberals, was known by his acquaintances to hate "blacks, gays and anyone who was different from him," left a pile of books by O'Reilly, Savage and Hannity behind in his car, and even wore a red-white-and-blue shirt to his church killing spree.
It's morbidly fascinating to watch the FR threads as the posters wriggle and bluster to try to accommodate this most inconvenient truth. And if you have the stomach to read them, you can learn a lot (perhaps more than you'd like) about the pathology of the contemporary American Right. For myself -- and I realize this will be the most profound heresy to progressives committed to the populist line -- reading these posts is a timely slap in the face, a painful reminder that maybe, just maybe, heartland Americans aren't such wonderful people at all. What you see in these posts is the oldest, deepest and meanest strain in American culture: the Ulster America founded by violent sectarians who moved westward again and again, from Scotland to Northern Ireland and then to the southern United States, then again westward into the American continent, to find a place where they could hone their hair-trigger intolerance without fear of interference from warmer, more humorous people. But that's me, and I'm often accused of "cynicism," whatever that means. At any rate, I'll present a little background on the site and then discuss a few of the posts. Make of them what you will.
For those who want to do their own analyses before reading on, here are the Web addresses of the three FR threads discussing the Tennessee shootings, in the order they appeared:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/search?;s=tennessee%20church
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2052204/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2052590/posts
For those unfamiliar with online right-wing culture, Free Republic is a far-right Web site established in 1996. It soon found a huge, loyal audience among the right wing's most rabid, ignorant and openly fascistic voices -- or as FR calls them, "grassroots conservatives." Even other right-wing Web sites shun FR, and you'll often observe posters to these sites worrying, when online discussions become openly racist or fascistic, that they're becoming too much like "the Freepers," as FR's ranting posters proudly call themselves.
The same hatred of "liberals" that drove the Tennessee killer is on display, with unconscious irony, in the house advertisement appearing at the top of one of the forums on the church shooting. A bald eagle stands before an American flag, with the caption, "Driving liberals crazy and having fun doing it!"
The first posts reacting to the church shooting are smug gloats. Many posters were absolutely certain that the gunman would turn out to be a Muslim:
Source: Alternet
When Free Republic forum posters learned that the gunman was from their own demographic, out came the conservative madness.
A classic drama full of hatred, ignorance and irony played out this week in the forum section of right-wing Web site Free Republic, as "Freepers" tried to make sense of a church shooting in Tennessee that killed two parishioners and wounded many others. The grotesque irony of the FR discussions is that, after early posters had indulged all their bigoted guesses about the identity of the killer, they found out the gunman was actually straight out of their own demographic: a 59-year-old white man named Jim Adkisson, who left a four-page letter ranting against liberals, was known by his acquaintances to hate "blacks, gays and anyone who was different from him," left a pile of books by O'Reilly, Savage and Hannity behind in his car, and even wore a red-white-and-blue shirt to his church killing spree.
It's morbidly fascinating to watch the FR threads as the posters wriggle and bluster to try to accommodate this most inconvenient truth. And if you have the stomach to read them, you can learn a lot (perhaps more than you'd like) about the pathology of the contemporary American Right. For myself -- and I realize this will be the most profound heresy to progressives committed to the populist line -- reading these posts is a timely slap in the face, a painful reminder that maybe, just maybe, heartland Americans aren't such wonderful people at all. What you see in these posts is the oldest, deepest and meanest strain in American culture: the Ulster America founded by violent sectarians who moved westward again and again, from Scotland to Northern Ireland and then to the southern United States, then again westward into the American continent, to find a place where they could hone their hair-trigger intolerance without fear of interference from warmer, more humorous people. But that's me, and I'm often accused of "cynicism," whatever that means. At any rate, I'll present a little background on the site and then discuss a few of the posts. Make of them what you will.
For those who want to do their own analyses before reading on, here are the Web addresses of the three FR threads discussing the Tennessee shootings, in the order they appeared:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/search?;s=tennessee%20church
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2052204/posts
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2052590/posts
For those unfamiliar with online right-wing culture, Free Republic is a far-right Web site established in 1996. It soon found a huge, loyal audience among the right wing's most rabid, ignorant and openly fascistic voices -- or as FR calls them, "grassroots conservatives." Even other right-wing Web sites shun FR, and you'll often observe posters to these sites worrying, when online discussions become openly racist or fascistic, that they're becoming too much like "the Freepers," as FR's ranting posters proudly call themselves.
The same hatred of "liberals" that drove the Tennessee killer is on display, with unconscious irony, in the house advertisement appearing at the top of one of the forums on the church shooting. A bald eagle stands before an American flag, with the caption, "Driving liberals crazy and having fun doing it!"
The first posts reacting to the church shooting are smug gloats. Many posters were absolutely certain that the gunman would turn out to be a Muslim:
Source: Alternet
Lawmakers to push for U.S. apology for slavery
By Wendy Koch, USA TODAY
Five states did something over the past 12 months that no state had done before: expressed regret or apologized for slavery.
This year, Congress, which meets in a Capitol built partly by slaves, will consider issuing its own apology.
"We've seen states step forward on this," says Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, citing the resolutions of Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina, Alabama and New Jersey. "I'm really shocked, just shocked" that the federal government hasn't apologized. "It's time to do so."
Harkin says he and Sen. Sam Brownback R-Kan., will propose as early as March an apology not only for slavery but for subsequent "Jim Crow" laws that furthered racial segregation. So far, they have 14 Senate backers, including Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama. A similar House measure introduced last year has 120 co-sponsors.
"I think 2008 will be the year," says Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn. He says an apology could begin a dialogue about race that Obama could continue as the nation's first black president.
"The success of the Obama candidacy underscores the irrelevance of an apology" because it shows "enormous progress" in race relations, says Roger Clegg of the Center for Equal Opportunity, a conservative group that describes itself as opposed to racial preferences. "Haven't we already moved beyond it?"
Congress has apologized before, but not for slavery.
It apologized to Japanese-Americans in 1988 for holding them in camps during World War II and gave each survivor $20,000. In 1993, Congress apologized to native Hawaiians for the overthrow of their kingdom a century earlier. In 2005, the Senate apologized for not enacting anti-lynching legislation.
The Senate has no record of any prior effort to apologize for slavery. In the House of Representatives, Tony Hall, an Ohio Democrat, proposed one in 1997 and Rep. John Conyers, D- Mich., has tried since 1989 to pass a bill that would create a commission to study slavery's impact and possible remedies, including reparations and cash payments.
Apologies are controversial because they could lead to reparations.
They "carry weight" as a step toward racial healing and don't have to "open the door" to reparations, says Carol Swain, professor of political science and law at Vanderbilt University.
Other proponents say an apology should lead to remedies.
"A mere apology doesn't do anything for me," says state Rep. Talibdin El-Amin, a Democrat who is lobbying for such a resolution in Missouri.
An apology is a necessary first step because it recognizes a wrongdoing, says Hilary Shelton of the NAACP.
He says it's "hollow," though, unless it leads to a remedy for African-Americans, who still suffer economically and educationally from the aftereffects of slavery and segregation.
Remedies don't have to be monetary payments but could be government programs to help the disadvantaged, Cohen says.
An apology is counterproductive, Clegg says. "It taps into white guilt and helps perpetuate social programs the civil rights establishment likes, such as racial preferences and ultimately reparations," he says.
Clegg says that an apology serves "no legitimate purpose since the villains and victims are long since deceased" and that such an action could instead be divisive and "keep racial wounds alive."
The state apologies have not given a boost to the reparations movement, says Ronald Walters, author of a new book titled The Price of Racial Reconciliation.
Last February, Virginia became the first state to issue a form of apology, expressing "profound regret," as did Maryland lawmakers a month later. The three states that followed expressed regret and apologized.
Alabama and New Jersey added language saying the apology cannot be used to sue the state.
The House proposal does not include such a disclaimer, but the Senate one does, saying its apology cannot be the basis for claims against the United States.
Harkin says his proposal does not address reparations.
"We're just apologizing," he says. "You can't undo the past, but you can recognize a wrong was done."
Source: USA Today
Five states did something over the past 12 months that no state had done before: expressed regret or apologized for slavery.
This year, Congress, which meets in a Capitol built partly by slaves, will consider issuing its own apology.
"We've seen states step forward on this," says Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, citing the resolutions of Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina, Alabama and New Jersey. "I'm really shocked, just shocked" that the federal government hasn't apologized. "It's time to do so."
Harkin says he and Sen. Sam Brownback R-Kan., will propose as early as March an apology not only for slavery but for subsequent "Jim Crow" laws that furthered racial segregation. So far, they have 14 Senate backers, including Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama. A similar House measure introduced last year has 120 co-sponsors.
"I think 2008 will be the year," says Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn. He says an apology could begin a dialogue about race that Obama could continue as the nation's first black president.
"The success of the Obama candidacy underscores the irrelevance of an apology" because it shows "enormous progress" in race relations, says Roger Clegg of the Center for Equal Opportunity, a conservative group that describes itself as opposed to racial preferences. "Haven't we already moved beyond it?"
Congress has apologized before, but not for slavery.
It apologized to Japanese-Americans in 1988 for holding them in camps during World War II and gave each survivor $20,000. In 1993, Congress apologized to native Hawaiians for the overthrow of their kingdom a century earlier. In 2005, the Senate apologized for not enacting anti-lynching legislation.
The Senate has no record of any prior effort to apologize for slavery. In the House of Representatives, Tony Hall, an Ohio Democrat, proposed one in 1997 and Rep. John Conyers, D- Mich., has tried since 1989 to pass a bill that would create a commission to study slavery's impact and possible remedies, including reparations and cash payments.
Apologies are controversial because they could lead to reparations.
They "carry weight" as a step toward racial healing and don't have to "open the door" to reparations, says Carol Swain, professor of political science and law at Vanderbilt University.
Other proponents say an apology should lead to remedies.
"A mere apology doesn't do anything for me," says state Rep. Talibdin El-Amin, a Democrat who is lobbying for such a resolution in Missouri.
An apology is a necessary first step because it recognizes a wrongdoing, says Hilary Shelton of the NAACP.
He says it's "hollow," though, unless it leads to a remedy for African-Americans, who still suffer economically and educationally from the aftereffects of slavery and segregation.
Remedies don't have to be monetary payments but could be government programs to help the disadvantaged, Cohen says.
An apology is counterproductive, Clegg says. "It taps into white guilt and helps perpetuate social programs the civil rights establishment likes, such as racial preferences and ultimately reparations," he says.
Clegg says that an apology serves "no legitimate purpose since the villains and victims are long since deceased" and that such an action could instead be divisive and "keep racial wounds alive."
The state apologies have not given a boost to the reparations movement, says Ronald Walters, author of a new book titled The Price of Racial Reconciliation.
Last February, Virginia became the first state to issue a form of apology, expressing "profound regret," as did Maryland lawmakers a month later. The three states that followed expressed regret and apologized.
Alabama and New Jersey added language saying the apology cannot be used to sue the state.
The House proposal does not include such a disclaimer, but the Senate one does, saying its apology cannot be the basis for claims against the United States.
Harkin says his proposal does not address reparations.
"We're just apologizing," he says. "You can't undo the past, but you can recognize a wrong was done."
Source: USA Today
Sunday, July 27, 2008
American Legion Immigration Report Replete with Falsehoods
by Sonia Scherr, July 16, 2008
Source: SPLCenter
Since its founding nearly 90 years ago, the American Legion has been a fixture of community life. It has hosted Memorial Day parades to remember those who died in America’s wars. It has held bingo nights and dances at its 14,000-plus posts worldwide. It has supported thousands of Boy Scout groups, sponsored a baseball program that’s produced numerous professional players, and helped children living in poverty or with special needs. From World War II to the war in Iraq, the legion has fought to improve benefits for veterans and their families.
Now, America’s largest veterans organization has launched another campaign — a hard-line attack on undocumented immigrants that’s at odds with the legion’s mainstream image. As part of this effort, the legion, which purports to speak for 2.7 million members, recently issued a booklet that regurgitates discredited and often completely false information about how “illegals” are bringing crime, disease, and terrorism to this country, even as they wreck the economy for natives.
The legion’s 34-page booklet, A Strategy to Address Illegal Immigration in the United States, asserts that “poverty, political instability, disease and war” are “on our back doorstep” because of porous borders and the failure of the government to stringently enforce immigration laws. But in making its case, the legion repeatedly cites dubious sources, ignores well-known facts and makes baseless claims — such as the false assertion that the undocumented infected more than 7,000 people in America with leprosy during a recent three-year period.
“They’re sort of trotting out old tropes to do with immigration,” said Richard Wright, a Dartmouth College geography professor who specializes in immigration. “These are hackneyed stereotypes that have no place in a policy document.”
That’s not all. On April 28, when it released its booklet — which was actually a repackaged version of a May 2007 legion “white paper” — the group announced that its campaign would include letters to the editor, news releases from posts around the country, and six 60-second radio spots. These spots revisit some of the nastiest claims in the report, portraying undocumented immigrants as sex offenders, gang members, terrorists and murderers. Remarkably, they are delivered by Richard Fatherly, Kansas City chapter media adviser for the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps — a group whose members President Bush once denounced as “vigilantes.”
The Intelligence Report sought comment from the American Legion and was directed to Robert Caudell, assistant director of its Americanism and Children & Youth Division. Caudell requested a detailed list of false or misleading claims, but then declined to address those claims once he had received it. Instead, he E-mailed a general statement pointing to the legion’s recommendations to the government and arguing that the Intelligence Report was simply interpreting the same facts and statistics differently than the legion. “It’s quite the same when two individuals witness an identical incident,” Caudell wrote. “Each has his perspective, his personal assumptions, and often a disparate ability to describe the event.”
That’s not the way Hispanic veterans organizations see it. Felix Vargas, a retired Army colonel and the director of government relations for the largest such group, American GI Forum, told the Intelligence Report that the booklet was misleading and untruthful and called it a slap in the face to Hispanic legionnaires. “We didn’t need this distraction,” said Vargas, who served as an Army Ranger and Special Forces commander in Vietnam. “The legion crusade is a disservice to both the veteran community and the nation.” Added Eric Rojo, the president of Hispanic War Veterans of America and another retired colonel: “Their position is absurd and ignorant. Someone didn’t sit down and check the facts.” And John Amaya, a staff attorney at the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, noted that 11% of the first 4,000 American casualties in Iraq have been Latinos — and many of them are the children of undocumented residents of the United States.
The American Legion actually has been engaged with nativist groups for some time. In 2004, its national convention in Nashville, Tenn., featured Dan Stein, leader of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), a strident nativist group that opposes both legal and illegal immigration. In March 2007, it held a forum on illegal immigration spotlighting nativist heavyweights like the leaders of NumbersUSA and the Center for Immigration Studies. It has allowed its posts to be used for gatherings of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps. And this spring, it gave its “National Commander’s Public Relations Award” to CNN anchor Lou Dobbs, who has himself regularly presented false data about immigrants.
At times in its history, the legion has made other forays into nativist politics. In 1937, the legion published A Review of Alien Isms, Revolutionary Communism and their Active Sympathizers in the United States, which linked immigrants to what was seen as the ultimate evil “ism”: communism. The book claimed that immigrant children accounted for most of those attending communist summer camps and that other supposedly subversive groups were also heavily populated by immigrants. It demanded enhanced border patrols, immediate deportation of the undocumented and slashing of all immigration quotas by 90%. After World War I, when anti-Asian sentiment was sweeping the country, the legion on the West Coast championed policies that discriminated against Japanese-Americans. This attitude also affected the national legion, whose committee to investigate Asiatic immigration included a Seattle attorney who had served as president of his city’s Anti-Japanese League, according to Tom Heuterman’s book The Burning Horse.
What follows is a sampling of the kind of claims that the American Legion is making with regard to undocumented immigrants, along with the actual situation, as revealed by statistics and interviews with non-partisan experts.
THE LEGION’S CLAIM: American prisons “are crowded or full because of the illegals convicted of committing crimes against the people of the United States.” Non-citizens make up fully 30% of the American prison population.
THE TRUTH: As with many of its claims, the legion offers no source for this figure other than to claim that it has been “widely reported.” A 2005 report by the nonpartisan General Accounting Office says that immigrants — both documented and undocumented — constitute 27% of federal prisoners. But fewer than 13% of incarcerated people in America are in federal prisons, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. When both federal and state prisoners are counted, about 6% are non-citizens; that is actually less than expected, because documented and undocumented immigrants make up roughly 8% of adults residing in the U.S.
THE LEGION’S CLAIM: Based on the same General Accounting Office (GAO) report, the legion states that 49% of all incarcerated illegal immigrants had prior felony convictions.
THE TRUTH: The GAO report contains no such information, despite the fact that the American Legion report specifically cites it. What it does say is that of the offenses for which undocumented immigrants were arrested, just 12% were violent crimes.
THE LEGION’S CLAIM: A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) program aimed at catching child predators arrested more than 6,000 “illegal aliens” in its first two years. The legion also asserts that 240,000 undocumented immigrants are sex offenders.
THE TRUTH: While it’s true that Operation Predator made 6,000-plus arrests in its first two years, those arrested consisted of both documented and undocumented immigrants, as well as American citizens, according to ICE. About 85% of those arrested were foreign nationals (many of them documented), but this was no surprise, given that the operation specifically targeted foreign-born predators whose status made them deportable, along with U.S. citizens who engage in child sex tourism abroad. With regard to the total figure of undocumented sex offenders, the legion cites a self-published article from independent criminal profiler Deborah Schurman-Kauflin stating that 240,000 undocumented immigrants are sex offenders. Schurman-Kauflin based that figure on the assumption — for which she provided no specific source — that sex offenders account for 2% of all undocumented immigrants. She didn’t respond to an E-mail from the Intelligence Report seeking clarification.
THE LEGION’S CLAIM: Thousands of immigrants from countries with terrorist connections have been caught trying to enter the United States illegally. This claim is immediately followed by several paragraphs about illegal crossing of the Mexican border, suggesting that those “from countries with known terrorist connections” are entering the U.S. via Mexico.
THE TRUTH: A 2006 report by the Nixon Center, which appeared in the peer-reviewed Terrorism and Political Violence journal, found that the suggestion that terrorists were entering the U.S. through Mexico, while frightening, was entirely untrue: “Despite media alarms about terrorists concealed in the illegal traffic crossing the Mexican border, not a single subject entered from Mexico.”
THE LEGION’S CLAIM: “More Americans are killed by illegal aliens than die in the Iraq War.”
THE TRUTH: The legion cites no source for this allegation. Its claim appears to come from a February 2007 article by the editors of Family Security Matters, which frequently publishes breathless “exclusives” such as the one about Latinos titled, “Illegal Aliens Bring a Taliban Culture to the United States.” The February 2007 article attributes its data to an article on the far-right WorldNetDaily website, which in turn cites blogger Matt Johnson. In 2005, Johnson claimed — based, absurdly, on murder rates in immigrants’ home countries — that undocumented immigrants kill 1,806 to 2,510 people every year. Applying that claim to the FBI’s most recent murder total (15,854 murders in 2006) would mean that the undocumented, who number about 12 million people or 4% of the U.S. population, are responsible for 11.4% to 16.1% of U.S. murders. In plain English, that means the legion is claiming that undocumented immigrants murder U.S. citizens at a rate of three to four times that of the general population. In fact, nonpartisan studies have shown that immigrants of all kinds are significantly less criminal than their native-born American counterparts.
THE LEGION’S CLAIM: The legion quotes a 2005 article in the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons saying that many illegal immigrants “harbor fatal diseases that American medicine fought and vanquished long ago, such as drug-resistant tuberculosis, malaria, leprosy, plague, polio, dengue and Chagas disease. The influx of illegal aliens has serious hidden medical consequences.” The legion also claims that drug-resistant tuberculosis cases have risen 25% recently.
THE TRUTH: The “journal” the legion cites is a pseudo-scientific publication known for articles like the recent piece attempting to refute the well-established fact that the HIV virus causes AIDS. And the 2005 journal article’s author, the late Madeleine Cosman, was a lawyer and medievalist with no medical expertise at all. She was also a rabid migrant hater, as evidenced by this 2005 comment about all Mexican male immigrants to the U.S.: “Most of these bastards molest girls under age 12, some as young as age 5, others age 3. Although, of course, some specialize in boys, some specialize in nuns, [and] some are exceedingly versatile and rape little girls age 11 and women up to age 79.” It is true that certain diseases like Chagas disease, are more prevalent among immigration populations. But the legion’s claims are wildly overstated, suggesting real and widespread threats to the health of the general public. As an example, in the case of drug-resistant tuberculosis, the Centers for Disease Control reports that there were only 116 cases in 2006, the most recent year for which statistics are available. Overall, tuberculosis cases in the United States are at an all-time low since national reporting began in 1953.
THE LEGION’S CLAIM: “Between 2000 and 2003, leprosy infected over 7,000 people in the U.S., brought to this country by illegal immigrants from India, Brazil, Mexico and the Caribbean.” That compared to 900 cases in the prior 40 years.
THE TRUTH: The legion’s claim is based on a misreading of a New York Times article cited by Cosman in her journal article. In fact, just 453 cases were diagnosed in those years, according to the National Hansen’s Disease [leprosy] Program. As program director James Krahenbuhl told the Times: “It’s not a public health problem. That’s the bottom line.” The legion’s claim has been popularized nationally by CNN host Lou Dobbs, who refused to retract his assertion even after it had been debunked by “60 Minutes” and many others.
THE LEGION’S CLAIM: “Illegals cost Americans jobs.”
THE TRUTH: A 2006 Pew Hispanic Center study found that, overall, large increases in states’ immigrant populations did not correspond with more unemployment for their native-born workers. While some scholars have said that undocumented workers depress wages for native-born high school dropouts, most have failed to establish a link between immigration and job loss, said Richard Wright, the Dartmouth College professor. In fact, many experts have argued that immigration can lead to a net gain of jobs. Said Wright: “The actual effect on the economy is at worst minor, at best beneficial.”
THE LEGION’S CLAIM: “Illegal immigration … causes an enormous drain on public services.” Citing the partisan Center for Immigration Studies, which favors restricting immigration, the legion says undocumented immigrants don’t pay nearly enough in taxes to compensate for the burden they place on public resources.
THE TRUTH: Undocumented immigrants are barred from receiving most forms of public assistance, other than public school education and emergency medical care. But they do pay taxes, including sales taxes, and often, through phony Social Security cards, payroll taxes. In 2005, The New York Times reported that undocumented immigrants contribute some $7 billion a year to the Social Security system that they will never be able to claim. Local and state governments, however, do not receive any benefit from that money and may, as a result, spend more on services to the undocumented than they get back in local taxes from them.
Mexican files $75K claim against Gilbert police
Armando Rodriguez-Morales got justice in court. And now, the 60-year-old Mexican citizen wants Gilbert police to pay.
Charges against Mexican motorist dropped
Morales, his wife and two family friends have filed a $75,000 notice of claims against the town stemming from a December traffic stop when they were left stranded on the side of the road in a high-crime area of Mesa after an officer had their car improperly towed.
The claim was filed May 15. Morales, who lives in Hermosillo, Mexico, couldn't be reached for comment.
Lawyers believe Morales could get more in the case, the claim states. However, to avoid the cost of litigation and court delays, they decided to settle for less. Morales is seeking $45,000 for himself and $10,000 each for the others.
On Dec. 14, while on holiday DUI patrol, officer Chad Wright pulled over Morales at a Mesa intersection for "illegal backing," meaning his vehicle rolled backward after stopping. Morales had a Mexican driver's license, and his vehicle had Sonora license plates. Wright decided the license and insurance papers were falsified and ordered the car towed. Both were later verified by the Mexican consulate.
Morales was visiting from Mexico for a wedding. He and the others were left stranded with their luggage near Broadway Road and Mesa Drive. Gilbert police later released the car and the San Tan justice of the peace dropped all charges.
The incident quickly caught the attention of Mesa Police Chief George Gascón after members of the Morales family sent a complaint to city officials. Gascón forwarded the complaint to Gilbert, prompting an internal investigation of Wright. The inquiry found Wright violated multiple department policies, including violations of abuse, loss of Morales' property and not reporting facts properly or accurately.
In the claim, lawyers said Wright stopped the car because he suspected the driver and occupants were illegal immigrants. "Officer Wright's conduct and statements on the night in question leave no doubt that his actions were racially motivated," the claim said.
Wright was cleared of the racial profiling charge. But after reviewing Wright's traffic stop records, the Tribune learned he ticketed Hispanic drivers at a rate nearly double the department average.
Wright, an eight-year veteran, was removed from traffic duty after the investigation and reassigned to patrol. He also was given a written warning.
"I do believe his extensive commitment to removing impaired drivers has narrowed his focus," Cmdr. Ken Buckland wrote in a report. "This I believe, ultimately led to his less than favorable decisions in this case."
Source: East Valley Tribune
Charges against Mexican motorist dropped
Morales, his wife and two family friends have filed a $75,000 notice of claims against the town stemming from a December traffic stop when they were left stranded on the side of the road in a high-crime area of Mesa after an officer had their car improperly towed.
The claim was filed May 15. Morales, who lives in Hermosillo, Mexico, couldn't be reached for comment.
Lawyers believe Morales could get more in the case, the claim states. However, to avoid the cost of litigation and court delays, they decided to settle for less. Morales is seeking $45,000 for himself and $10,000 each for the others.
On Dec. 14, while on holiday DUI patrol, officer Chad Wright pulled over Morales at a Mesa intersection for "illegal backing," meaning his vehicle rolled backward after stopping. Morales had a Mexican driver's license, and his vehicle had Sonora license plates. Wright decided the license and insurance papers were falsified and ordered the car towed. Both were later verified by the Mexican consulate.
Morales was visiting from Mexico for a wedding. He and the others were left stranded with their luggage near Broadway Road and Mesa Drive. Gilbert police later released the car and the San Tan justice of the peace dropped all charges.
The incident quickly caught the attention of Mesa Police Chief George Gascón after members of the Morales family sent a complaint to city officials. Gascón forwarded the complaint to Gilbert, prompting an internal investigation of Wright. The inquiry found Wright violated multiple department policies, including violations of abuse, loss of Morales' property and not reporting facts properly or accurately.
In the claim, lawyers said Wright stopped the car because he suspected the driver and occupants were illegal immigrants. "Officer Wright's conduct and statements on the night in question leave no doubt that his actions were racially motivated," the claim said.
Wright was cleared of the racial profiling charge. But after reviewing Wright's traffic stop records, the Tribune learned he ticketed Hispanic drivers at a rate nearly double the department average.
Wright, an eight-year veteran, was removed from traffic duty after the investigation and reassigned to patrol. He also was given a written warning.
"I do believe his extensive commitment to removing impaired drivers has narrowed his focus," Cmdr. Ken Buckland wrote in a report. "This I believe, ultimately led to his less than favorable decisions in this case."
Source: East Valley Tribune
Pa. teens charged in fatal beating of immigrant
By MICHAEL RUBINKAM, Associated Press Writer Fri Jul 25, 7:49 PM ET
PORT CARBON, Pa. - Three white teens were charged Friday in what officials said was an epithet-filled fatal beating of an illegal Mexican immigrant in a small northeast Pennsylvania coal town. Brandon J. Piekarsky, 16, and Colin J. Walsh, 17, were charged as adults with homicide and ethnic intimidation in the July 12 attack on Luis Ramirez.
A third teen, Derrick M. Donchak, 18, was charged with aggravated assault, ethnic intimidation and other offenses. All are from Shenandoah, where the attack occurred.
Additional charges are expected in the case that has roiled Shenandoah, a small, economically depressed town where police have reported friction between whites and a growing Hispanic population.
The suspects played football at Shenandoah Valley High School; Donchak, now enrolled at Bloomsburg University, was the quarterback last season.
"As a result of this crime, a young man has lost his life. Many other lives have been devastated, and the borough of Shenandoah has been filled with tensions between many ethnic groups," Schuylkill County District Attorney James Goodman said.
"Now that the criminal charges have been filed, we must let this case be handled in the criminal justice system," he said.
According to a police affidavit, the defendants and three 17-year-olds encountered Ramirez, 25, and a teenage girl in a park the night of July 12.
The youths goaded Ramirez and the girl, saying, "You should get out of this neighborhood" and "Get your Mexican boyfriend out of here," documents said. After Ramirez and the girl began walking away, someone yelled an ethnic slur at him, court documents said. He responded, "What's your problem?"
A fight ensued, during which police said Walsh punched Ramirez in the face. The victim fell and hit his head on the street, leaving him unconscious, after which Piekarsky kicked him in the head, police said.
All three suspects used ethnic slurs during the fight, which ended with Ramirez in convulsions and foaming at the mouth, authorities said. The attackers fled the scene; Ramirez underwent surgery but died July 14 of head injuries.
Piekarsky and Walsh were being held without bail, while Donchak was held on $75,000 bail.
Lawyers for Piekarsky and Walsh said their clients are not guilty and that there was no evidence to support the homicide charges. They also said they would try to have the case removed to juvenile court.
Roger Laguna, Walsh's lawyer, said the police affidavit "pretty much describes chaos, and what you have then after the fact is somebody trying to sort through that and attribute certain acts to certain individuals."
He said that although slurs might have been used, the fight was not motivated by ethnicity.
"I think any time there's a fight and any time you have one ethnic group fighting another, there's going to be racial slurs," he said. "I've seen that since I was a kid on a playground 20 years ago, but they never called it ethnic intimidation until very recently."
Frederick Fanelli, Piekarsky's lawyer, said he is "surprised and disappointed" that his client faces a homicide charge, attributing Ramirez's death to a "street fight that ended tragically."
Donchak declined to comment.
Ramirez, who entered the U.S. illegally about six years ago, worked in a factory and picked strawberries and cherries.
Crystal Dillman, the victim's 24-year-old fiancee, who is white and grew up in Shenandoah, has said Ramirez was often called derogatory names and told to return to his homeland. The couple had two children together, and Dillman also has a 3-year-old who thought of Ramirez as her father.
"I plan on moving out of this town as fast as I can. Not because I'm scared. I just don't want to see my children have to deal with what their father dealt with," Dillman said.
Preliminary hearings for all three suspects were set for Aug. 4.
Goodman said a fourth teen will be charged as a juvenile with aggravated assault and ethnic intimidation and that charges also will be filed against a man who provided alcohol to the defendants hours before the attack.
Source: Yahoo
PORT CARBON, Pa. - Three white teens were charged Friday in what officials said was an epithet-filled fatal beating of an illegal Mexican immigrant in a small northeast Pennsylvania coal town. Brandon J. Piekarsky, 16, and Colin J. Walsh, 17, were charged as adults with homicide and ethnic intimidation in the July 12 attack on Luis Ramirez.
A third teen, Derrick M. Donchak, 18, was charged with aggravated assault, ethnic intimidation and other offenses. All are from Shenandoah, where the attack occurred.
Additional charges are expected in the case that has roiled Shenandoah, a small, economically depressed town where police have reported friction between whites and a growing Hispanic population.
The suspects played football at Shenandoah Valley High School; Donchak, now enrolled at Bloomsburg University, was the quarterback last season.
"As a result of this crime, a young man has lost his life. Many other lives have been devastated, and the borough of Shenandoah has been filled with tensions between many ethnic groups," Schuylkill County District Attorney James Goodman said.
"Now that the criminal charges have been filed, we must let this case be handled in the criminal justice system," he said.
According to a police affidavit, the defendants and three 17-year-olds encountered Ramirez, 25, and a teenage girl in a park the night of July 12.
The youths goaded Ramirez and the girl, saying, "You should get out of this neighborhood" and "Get your Mexican boyfriend out of here," documents said. After Ramirez and the girl began walking away, someone yelled an ethnic slur at him, court documents said. He responded, "What's your problem?"
A fight ensued, during which police said Walsh punched Ramirez in the face. The victim fell and hit his head on the street, leaving him unconscious, after which Piekarsky kicked him in the head, police said.
All three suspects used ethnic slurs during the fight, which ended with Ramirez in convulsions and foaming at the mouth, authorities said. The attackers fled the scene; Ramirez underwent surgery but died July 14 of head injuries.
Piekarsky and Walsh were being held without bail, while Donchak was held on $75,000 bail.
Lawyers for Piekarsky and Walsh said their clients are not guilty and that there was no evidence to support the homicide charges. They also said they would try to have the case removed to juvenile court.
Roger Laguna, Walsh's lawyer, said the police affidavit "pretty much describes chaos, and what you have then after the fact is somebody trying to sort through that and attribute certain acts to certain individuals."
He said that although slurs might have been used, the fight was not motivated by ethnicity.
"I think any time there's a fight and any time you have one ethnic group fighting another, there's going to be racial slurs," he said. "I've seen that since I was a kid on a playground 20 years ago, but they never called it ethnic intimidation until very recently."
Frederick Fanelli, Piekarsky's lawyer, said he is "surprised and disappointed" that his client faces a homicide charge, attributing Ramirez's death to a "street fight that ended tragically."
Donchak declined to comment.
Ramirez, who entered the U.S. illegally about six years ago, worked in a factory and picked strawberries and cherries.
Crystal Dillman, the victim's 24-year-old fiancee, who is white and grew up in Shenandoah, has said Ramirez was often called derogatory names and told to return to his homeland. The couple had two children together, and Dillman also has a 3-year-old who thought of Ramirez as her father.
"I plan on moving out of this town as fast as I can. Not because I'm scared. I just don't want to see my children have to deal with what their father dealt with," Dillman said.
Preliminary hearings for all three suspects were set for Aug. 4.
Goodman said a fourth teen will be charged as a juvenile with aggravated assault and ethnic intimidation and that charges also will be filed against a man who provided alcohol to the defendants hours before the attack.
Source: Yahoo
Saturday, July 19, 2008
Hispanic leaders fear for safety
Ugly side of debate emerges in threats
Kristin Collins, Staff Writer
For North Carolina's Hispanic leaders, the biggest hazards of the job were once long hours. Now, they include death threats.
A pair of the state's most prominent advocates, Andrea Bazán and Tony Asion, say that for the past several months, each time they have spoken publicly, they have gotten a raft of profanity-laced messages, some of them exhorting them to return to their home countries and others denigrating Hispanics. Several legislators say they have also gotten messages recently that cross the line into racism, and one got a menacing voice mail.
Threats of violence are becoming common enough that Bazán, president of the philanthropic Triangle Community Foundation, has requested protection at some public appearances. Asion, director of the Raleigh Hispanic advocacy group El Pueblo and a former police officer, said he has received two handwritten death threats at his office since May.
"This is not about immigration," Bazán said. "This is not about debating policy. This has moved on to another sphere. This is hate."
Bazán and others say they've gotten disturbing hate mail before. A 2005 effort to give in-state tuition to illegal immigrants brought reams of it, but that furor died down fairly quickly. Now, they say, threats and racist messages are becoming routine.
State legislators who supported a bill this year that would have guaranteed illegal immigrants the right to attend state colleges got a raft of messages, some of which smeared immigrants.
Rep. Pricey Harrison, a Greensboro Democrat who sponsored the bill, said she received one phone message warning that "my days are numbered." She said the message, which included profane insults, felt like a threat.
"I have not seen anything like what illegal immigration elicits," Harrison said. "It's revealing a very ugly side of humanity that I've never seen before."
Beyond the crackdown
Immigration has become an especially controversial subject in North Carolina and across the nation, fueled by the failure of a federal immigration reform bill last year.
Since then, sheriff's departments have started enforcing immigration law, the state's community colleges have barred admission to illegal immigrants, grassroots groups opposing illegal immigration have grown and some politicians have made an immigration crackdown the centerpiece of their campaigns.
Even those who have advocated a crackdown say they don't condone hate mail or threats.
"Certainly, any kind of threatening or antagonistic tone to any debate is unwarranted," said Brian Nick, spokesman for Sen. Elizabeth Dole, who has joined with sheriffs to push for the deportation of illegal immigrants who commit crimes.
But some say anti-illegal immigration activists have given the impression that Hispanics are to blame for all of society's ills, including crime, illness and unemployment.
Deborah Lauter, director of civil rights for the Anti-Defamation League, a New York group founded in 1913 to combat prejudice against Jews, said the ideas and language that have come to define the debate could fuel fringe groups.
"When you describe immigrants as Third World invaders or murderers, or say that they are swarming or coming in hordes, this is dehumanizing language," Lauter said. "That kind of rhetoric inspires others who might act out on hate."
William Gheen, a Raleigh man who has built a grassroots organization to oppose illegal immigration, often accuses Hispanic immigrants of carrying deadly diseases, raping and murdering Americans, plotting to merge the American and Mexican economies, or even reconquer parts of the Southwest for Mexico. He organizes e-mail campaigns against those he doesn't agree with.
Gheen said he does not condone violence or racism and has never made threats, and he dismissed claims that groups such as his could spark threats. "The only violence I'm seeing are the dead, maimed and raped Americans ... that are victims of illegal aliens," Gheen said.
However, other anti-illegal immigration activists say the movement has developed an ugly side.
"Something has gotten distorted, and it's creating a lot of hate," said Jim Gilchrist, the Southern California founder of the Minuteman Project, which organizes citizen patrols of the Mexican border.
Gilchrist said there are extremists on both sides of the issue and that he has received threatening messages from people on the pro-immigrant side of the debate. But lately, he said, he gets more hate mail from people on his side of the issue. He said groups are now fighting among themselves, and some have adopted messages that he considers racist.
Gilchrist said one California Minuteman chapter made a fake video depicting its members shooting a Mexican crossing the border illegally.
Blogs as soapboxes
Bazán said that in the past few months, she has gotten several nasty calls at home and has been the subject of violent talk on blogs, where she was referred to as a target.
The talk frightened her enough that she sent her children to stay with her ex-husband and stayed away from home for several days in June, when it was announced that she was the new board chairwoman of the well-known Hispanic advocacy group National Council of La Raza.
On the day of the announcement, a person commenting on one blog about her new post commanded others to "buy guns" and referred to Hispanic immigrants as "monkeys." "The time is coming to fight back and yes many will die in this fight," the comment read.
Bazán said she has met with Durham police to make them aware of the threats.
When she speaks publicly, a guard often protects her. She had a full-time private guard last week at a La Raza convention in San Diego.
Bazán, along with some other Hispanic advocates, said they have begun reporting messages they consider hateful to the state Human Relations Commission.
G.I. Allison, director of the commission, which was formed to ensure equal opportunity in housing and other areas, said he receives regular complaints of hate messages and threats against Hispanics. The commission recorded 38 hate incidents in the first half of this year, but it doesn't track how many are against Hispanics.
Asion said he frequently receives messages that he considers racist, but the recent death threats were the most troubling.
The author claims to be watching Asion, threatens bombings and dismemberment, invokes the Ku Klux Klan and commands Asion to "go home Mexico."
Asion said he hasn't gone to police because there is little they can do. But he said he now fears for his staff members.
"I tell my folks, if you get a box and it doesn't have a return address, you don't know where it's from, don't open it," Asion said. "These are the times that we're living through."
Source: News Observer
Kristin Collins, Staff Writer
For North Carolina's Hispanic leaders, the biggest hazards of the job were once long hours. Now, they include death threats.
A pair of the state's most prominent advocates, Andrea Bazán and Tony Asion, say that for the past several months, each time they have spoken publicly, they have gotten a raft of profanity-laced messages, some of them exhorting them to return to their home countries and others denigrating Hispanics. Several legislators say they have also gotten messages recently that cross the line into racism, and one got a menacing voice mail.
Threats of violence are becoming common enough that Bazán, president of the philanthropic Triangle Community Foundation, has requested protection at some public appearances. Asion, director of the Raleigh Hispanic advocacy group El Pueblo and a former police officer, said he has received two handwritten death threats at his office since May.
"This is not about immigration," Bazán said. "This is not about debating policy. This has moved on to another sphere. This is hate."
Bazán and others say they've gotten disturbing hate mail before. A 2005 effort to give in-state tuition to illegal immigrants brought reams of it, but that furor died down fairly quickly. Now, they say, threats and racist messages are becoming routine.
State legislators who supported a bill this year that would have guaranteed illegal immigrants the right to attend state colleges got a raft of messages, some of which smeared immigrants.
Rep. Pricey Harrison, a Greensboro Democrat who sponsored the bill, said she received one phone message warning that "my days are numbered." She said the message, which included profane insults, felt like a threat.
"I have not seen anything like what illegal immigration elicits," Harrison said. "It's revealing a very ugly side of humanity that I've never seen before."
Beyond the crackdown
Immigration has become an especially controversial subject in North Carolina and across the nation, fueled by the failure of a federal immigration reform bill last year.
Since then, sheriff's departments have started enforcing immigration law, the state's community colleges have barred admission to illegal immigrants, grassroots groups opposing illegal immigration have grown and some politicians have made an immigration crackdown the centerpiece of their campaigns.
Even those who have advocated a crackdown say they don't condone hate mail or threats.
"Certainly, any kind of threatening or antagonistic tone to any debate is unwarranted," said Brian Nick, spokesman for Sen. Elizabeth Dole, who has joined with sheriffs to push for the deportation of illegal immigrants who commit crimes.
But some say anti-illegal immigration activists have given the impression that Hispanics are to blame for all of society's ills, including crime, illness and unemployment.
Deborah Lauter, director of civil rights for the Anti-Defamation League, a New York group founded in 1913 to combat prejudice against Jews, said the ideas and language that have come to define the debate could fuel fringe groups.
"When you describe immigrants as Third World invaders or murderers, or say that they are swarming or coming in hordes, this is dehumanizing language," Lauter said. "That kind of rhetoric inspires others who might act out on hate."
William Gheen, a Raleigh man who has built a grassroots organization to oppose illegal immigration, often accuses Hispanic immigrants of carrying deadly diseases, raping and murdering Americans, plotting to merge the American and Mexican economies, or even reconquer parts of the Southwest for Mexico. He organizes e-mail campaigns against those he doesn't agree with.
Gheen said he does not condone violence or racism and has never made threats, and he dismissed claims that groups such as his could spark threats. "The only violence I'm seeing are the dead, maimed and raped Americans ... that are victims of illegal aliens," Gheen said.
However, other anti-illegal immigration activists say the movement has developed an ugly side.
"Something has gotten distorted, and it's creating a lot of hate," said Jim Gilchrist, the Southern California founder of the Minuteman Project, which organizes citizen patrols of the Mexican border.
Gilchrist said there are extremists on both sides of the issue and that he has received threatening messages from people on the pro-immigrant side of the debate. But lately, he said, he gets more hate mail from people on his side of the issue. He said groups are now fighting among themselves, and some have adopted messages that he considers racist.
Gilchrist said one California Minuteman chapter made a fake video depicting its members shooting a Mexican crossing the border illegally.
Blogs as soapboxes
Bazán said that in the past few months, she has gotten several nasty calls at home and has been the subject of violent talk on blogs, where she was referred to as a target.
The talk frightened her enough that she sent her children to stay with her ex-husband and stayed away from home for several days in June, when it was announced that she was the new board chairwoman of the well-known Hispanic advocacy group National Council of La Raza.
On the day of the announcement, a person commenting on one blog about her new post commanded others to "buy guns" and referred to Hispanic immigrants as "monkeys." "The time is coming to fight back and yes many will die in this fight," the comment read.
Bazán said she has met with Durham police to make them aware of the threats.
When she speaks publicly, a guard often protects her. She had a full-time private guard last week at a La Raza convention in San Diego.
Bazán, along with some other Hispanic advocates, said they have begun reporting messages they consider hateful to the state Human Relations Commission.
G.I. Allison, director of the commission, which was formed to ensure equal opportunity in housing and other areas, said he receives regular complaints of hate messages and threats against Hispanics. The commission recorded 38 hate incidents in the first half of this year, but it doesn't track how many are against Hispanics.
Asion said he frequently receives messages that he considers racist, but the recent death threats were the most troubling.
The author claims to be watching Asion, threatens bombings and dismemberment, invokes the Ku Klux Klan and commands Asion to "go home Mexico."
Asion said he hasn't gone to police because there is little they can do. But he said he now fears for his staff members.
"I tell my folks, if you get a box and it doesn't have a return address, you don't know where it's from, don't open it," Asion said. "These are the times that we're living through."
Source: News Observer
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Friday, July 04, 2008
Second man pleads guilty to Boulder bias crime
Abraham Paquet to be sentenced in August
By Laura Snider
Thursday, July 3, 2008
Abraham Paquet
Both of the 19-year-old men accused of assaulting a Hispanic man outside of a Boulder convenience store in March, calling him a racial slur and asking him, “Why are you stealing our jobs?” have pleaded guilty to committing a bias-motivated crime.
Thursday, Abraham Paquet, of Broomfield, pleaded guilty to harassing Ivan Ponce De Leon-Najera, 26, of Louisville, outside a convenience store and also to stealing a 15-year-old’s skateboard earlier on the same day.
All other charges were dropped as part of a plea agreement with prosecutors.
Both crimes are punishable by six to 18 months at the Boulder County Jail and a fine of between $500 and $5,000.
Paquet is scheduled to be sentenced on Aug. 22.
In May, Joshua Ruzek also pleaded guilty to committing a bias-motivated crime and, at the same time, admitted to tampering with the jail’s sprinkler heads while in custody, causing the jail to flood. He is now serving 18 months for harassing Ponce De Leon-Najera and six months more for criminal mischief.
The two men were arrested after officers saw them attacking Ponce De Leon-Najera outside the PDQ store at 5200 Manhattan Circle on March 11.
E.W. Scripps Co.
© 2006 Daily Camera and Boulder Publishing, LLC.
Source: Daily Camera
By Laura Snider
Thursday, July 3, 2008
Abraham Paquet
Both of the 19-year-old men accused of assaulting a Hispanic man outside of a Boulder convenience store in March, calling him a racial slur and asking him, “Why are you stealing our jobs?” have pleaded guilty to committing a bias-motivated crime.
Thursday, Abraham Paquet, of Broomfield, pleaded guilty to harassing Ivan Ponce De Leon-Najera, 26, of Louisville, outside a convenience store and also to stealing a 15-year-old’s skateboard earlier on the same day.
All other charges were dropped as part of a plea agreement with prosecutors.
Both crimes are punishable by six to 18 months at the Boulder County Jail and a fine of between $500 and $5,000.
Paquet is scheduled to be sentenced on Aug. 22.
In May, Joshua Ruzek also pleaded guilty to committing a bias-motivated crime and, at the same time, admitted to tampering with the jail’s sprinkler heads while in custody, causing the jail to flood. He is now serving 18 months for harassing Ponce De Leon-Najera and six months more for criminal mischief.
The two men were arrested after officers saw them attacking Ponce De Leon-Najera outside the PDQ store at 5200 Manhattan Circle on March 11.
E.W. Scripps Co.
© 2006 Daily Camera and Boulder Publishing, LLC.
Source: Daily Camera
Thursday, July 03, 2008
ADL: Pat Buchanan Promotes New Book on Racist Radio Show
NEW YORK, June 30 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) today said conservative political commentator Pat Buchanan "stooped into the cesspool of extremism" by appearing on a radio show run by a well-known white supremacist.
On June 29, Buchanan appeared on "Political Cesspool," a Tennessee-based AM radio show run by white supremacist James Edwards, to promote his book, Churchill, Hitler, and the Unnecessary War: How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World.
"While parading himself as a moderate, to sell his book Pat Buchanan has stooped into the cesspool of extremism," said Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director.
Edwards regularly invites anti-Semites, neo-Nazis, white supremacists, Holocaust deniers and conspiracy theorists to voice their views on his show. It was Buchanan's second appearance on the program, which is also available via the Internet.
"It's not as if he did this by accident," said Mr. Foxman. "Anyone who would have made inquiries into the nature of this program would have realized that it is an outlet for racism, anti-Semitism and hate."
During the interview, Buchanan posited that World War II was unnecessary and that the British "blundered ... to bring about a war with Germany," a war that Hitler did not want. Buchanan also stated that, "Had there been no war, there would have been no Holocaust."
Buchanan, who has a long history of racist and anti-Semitic comments, defended the American aviator Charles Lindbergh against charges of anti-Semitism, saying that "...his reputation has been blackened because of a single speech he gave and a couple of paragraphs in it where he said that ... the Jewish community is beating the drums for war ... but frankly, no one has said what he said was palpably untrue."
The Anti-Defamation League, founded in 1913, is the world's leading organization fighting anti-Semitism through programs and services that counteract hatred, prejudice and bigotry.
SOURCE Anti-Defamation League
Source: PR Newswire
On June 29, Buchanan appeared on "Political Cesspool," a Tennessee-based AM radio show run by white supremacist James Edwards, to promote his book, Churchill, Hitler, and the Unnecessary War: How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World.
"While parading himself as a moderate, to sell his book Pat Buchanan has stooped into the cesspool of extremism," said Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director.
Edwards regularly invites anti-Semites, neo-Nazis, white supremacists, Holocaust deniers and conspiracy theorists to voice their views on his show. It was Buchanan's second appearance on the program, which is also available via the Internet.
"It's not as if he did this by accident," said Mr. Foxman. "Anyone who would have made inquiries into the nature of this program would have realized that it is an outlet for racism, anti-Semitism and hate."
During the interview, Buchanan posited that World War II was unnecessary and that the British "blundered ... to bring about a war with Germany," a war that Hitler did not want. Buchanan also stated that, "Had there been no war, there would have been no Holocaust."
Buchanan, who has a long history of racist and anti-Semitic comments, defended the American aviator Charles Lindbergh against charges of anti-Semitism, saying that "...his reputation has been blackened because of a single speech he gave and a couple of paragraphs in it where he said that ... the Jewish community is beating the drums for war ... but frankly, no one has said what he said was palpably untrue."
The Anti-Defamation League, founded in 1913, is the world's leading organization fighting anti-Semitism through programs and services that counteract hatred, prejudice and bigotry.
SOURCE Anti-Defamation League
Source: PR Newswire
Let's not be fooled by white pride rally
Supporters of a so-called "white pride" group are expected to gather Saturday at 2 p.m. at an undisclosed location in Hudson to stage what is being billed as an annual "Close the Border" demonstration.
If it is anything like the group's event two years ago at Library Park, participants will meet to drum up support from passing motorists while holding signs containing messages like "Keep NH safe, deport illegals."
North East White Pride has a soft spot in its heart for Hudson because it was one of the New Hampshire communities that received national attention in 2005 – New Ipswich was the other – for charging suspected illegal immigrants with criminal trespass under state law.
A Jaffrey-Peterborough District Court judge ultimately dismissed the charges on the grounds that the federal government has exclusive jurisdiction over immigration law in this country.
In fact, group member Rob O'Donovan of Haverhill, Mass., made that very point when posting the announcement of the demonstration on the organization's Web site, www.newp.org.
(You won't have any trouble figuring out if you've found the correct site – it's the one with the Web address plastered over a black-and-white photo of Nazi soldiers.)
For his part, O'Donovan rejects descriptions of his organization as a home for racists and white supremacists and claims "we don't hate anyone."
But one look at the group's Web site suggests otherwise, particularly the online comments and the images that accompany them.
If it's true, as the saying goes, you are known by the company you keep, O'Donovan's protestations ring pretty hollow.
Meet some of the members:
• "KKK4Life," who identifies himself as a 21-year-old male from Somerville, Mass., includes in his posting links to the official Web sites of the Ku Klux Klan, American Nazi Party and – not surprisingly – an anti-Barack Obama site that carries the heading: "Defeat Obama '08 / An Obama Nation is an Abomination."
• "Ulfar1-4/88," an 18-year-old male from the Clinton-Worcester area of Massachusetts, refers to Nashua and other sections of the country as being "infested" – and he's not talking about mosquitoes.
• Then there is "jezabell," who identifies herself only as a woman and uses a photograph of a noose as her identifying icon. She also uses the tag line of her posting to share her attempt at humor:
Q: How do you smile and wink at a (n-word) at the same time?
A: Through the scope.
And, yes, the word in parentheses is ours, not hers.
The fact that O'Donovan himself once tried to organize a Martin Luther King Day protest in 2006 in front of the Museum of African American History in Boston also suggests that illegal immigration is just a convenient front for an organization with much broader tentacles.
Frankly, while we would prefer they find somewhere else to preach their message of hate, it would be hypocritical for us to suggest they don't have the right to do it here. The First Amendment says that they can, and that's certainly as it should be.
But perhaps they wouldn't be quite so anxious to return next year if they sensed they weren't welcome here in Hudson – or anywhere else in the state, for that matter.
So if you happen to see them on Saturday afternoon, please don't be fooled by their "immigration reform" ruse. This is a hate group, pure and simple, and perhaps the best message we could send them is our silence.
No honking horns. No waves. No shouts of support.
That would speak volumes to what we think about bigotry and intolerance in our community.
Source: Nashua Telegraph
If it is anything like the group's event two years ago at Library Park, participants will meet to drum up support from passing motorists while holding signs containing messages like "Keep NH safe, deport illegals."
North East White Pride has a soft spot in its heart for Hudson because it was one of the New Hampshire communities that received national attention in 2005 – New Ipswich was the other – for charging suspected illegal immigrants with criminal trespass under state law.
A Jaffrey-Peterborough District Court judge ultimately dismissed the charges on the grounds that the federal government has exclusive jurisdiction over immigration law in this country.
In fact, group member Rob O'Donovan of Haverhill, Mass., made that very point when posting the announcement of the demonstration on the organization's Web site, www.newp.org.
(You won't have any trouble figuring out if you've found the correct site – it's the one with the Web address plastered over a black-and-white photo of Nazi soldiers.)
For his part, O'Donovan rejects descriptions of his organization as a home for racists and white supremacists and claims "we don't hate anyone."
But one look at the group's Web site suggests otherwise, particularly the online comments and the images that accompany them.
If it's true, as the saying goes, you are known by the company you keep, O'Donovan's protestations ring pretty hollow.
Meet some of the members:
• "KKK4Life," who identifies himself as a 21-year-old male from Somerville, Mass., includes in his posting links to the official Web sites of the Ku Klux Klan, American Nazi Party and – not surprisingly – an anti-Barack Obama site that carries the heading: "Defeat Obama '08 / An Obama Nation is an Abomination."
• "Ulfar1-4/88," an 18-year-old male from the Clinton-Worcester area of Massachusetts, refers to Nashua and other sections of the country as being "infested" – and he's not talking about mosquitoes.
• Then there is "jezabell," who identifies herself only as a woman and uses a photograph of a noose as her identifying icon. She also uses the tag line of her posting to share her attempt at humor:
Q: How do you smile and wink at a (n-word) at the same time?
A: Through the scope.
And, yes, the word in parentheses is ours, not hers.
The fact that O'Donovan himself once tried to organize a Martin Luther King Day protest in 2006 in front of the Museum of African American History in Boston also suggests that illegal immigration is just a convenient front for an organization with much broader tentacles.
Frankly, while we would prefer they find somewhere else to preach their message of hate, it would be hypocritical for us to suggest they don't have the right to do it here. The First Amendment says that they can, and that's certainly as it should be.
But perhaps they wouldn't be quite so anxious to return next year if they sensed they weren't welcome here in Hudson – or anywhere else in the state, for that matter.
So if you happen to see them on Saturday afternoon, please don't be fooled by their "immigration reform" ruse. This is a hate group, pure and simple, and perhaps the best message we could send them is our silence.
No honking horns. No waves. No shouts of support.
That would speak volumes to what we think about bigotry and intolerance in our community.
Source: Nashua Telegraph
Sunday, June 29, 2008
Slain teenager had yelled racial slurs at couple before stabbing, according to witness
Posted by Maxine Bernstein; The Oregonian June 27, 2008 18:02PM
Categories: Breaking News
James A. Knutson fatally stabbed a Gresham teenager after the teenager and two of his friends yelled profanity-laced racist slurs at Knutson and a Filipino woman, according to court documents filed Friday.
The woman walking with Knutson, a 38-year-old white male, told investigators that they encountered three white males at the Safeway at Southeast 162nd Avenue and Division Street. The young men were on the west side of 162nd Avenue, and shouted a racist slur and profanities at her as they walked on the east side of the avenue.
Knutson and the woman kept walking to meet a third friend, and when they came back through the same intersection, the three young white men continued to taunt them, shouting racist and lewd epithets. One of the three young men, later identified as 17-year-old Billy Lyle Henderson, ran across the avenue towards Knutson and his friends.
Henderson allegedly told Knutson's female friend that he was not going to "beat up" her, but was going to "teach a lesson" to Knutson, according to a probable cause affidavit.
The woman told officers at that point she was holding a switchblade knife that she carries. Knutson suddenly grabbed it from her with such force that it cut her middle finger, and stabbed Henderson once or twice. Knutson told his friend to run.
They met later in the evening at a mobile home in the 16700 block of Southeast Division Street. Knutson told friends he had "just shanked a guy," witnesses told police.
Portland police were called to the area at 10:39 p.m. Wednesday. Someone reported a man in the road who looked as though he was suffering from a seizure. Officers found Henderson dead of stab wounds at the northeast corner of Southeast 162nd Avenue and Main Street.
With the help of a Multnomah County sheriff's deputy, who recognized the description of the suspect as someone who goes by the street name "Rock Head," Portland police located Knutson at the mobile home park about 4:15 a.m. Thursday. Knutson was arraigned on one count of murder Friday.
Portland police say they don't know if Henderson or his friends have any gang connections, but East Precinct officers say they've noticed an increase in European Kindred, and white supremacist affiliated gang violence.
Maxine Bernstein: maxinebernstein@news.oregonian.com
Source: Oregon Live
Categories: Breaking News
James A. Knutson fatally stabbed a Gresham teenager after the teenager and two of his friends yelled profanity-laced racist slurs at Knutson and a Filipino woman, according to court documents filed Friday.
The woman walking with Knutson, a 38-year-old white male, told investigators that they encountered three white males at the Safeway at Southeast 162nd Avenue and Division Street. The young men were on the west side of 162nd Avenue, and shouted a racist slur and profanities at her as they walked on the east side of the avenue.
Knutson and the woman kept walking to meet a third friend, and when they came back through the same intersection, the three young white men continued to taunt them, shouting racist and lewd epithets. One of the three young men, later identified as 17-year-old Billy Lyle Henderson, ran across the avenue towards Knutson and his friends.
Henderson allegedly told Knutson's female friend that he was not going to "beat up" her, but was going to "teach a lesson" to Knutson, according to a probable cause affidavit.
The woman told officers at that point she was holding a switchblade knife that she carries. Knutson suddenly grabbed it from her with such force that it cut her middle finger, and stabbed Henderson once or twice. Knutson told his friend to run.
They met later in the evening at a mobile home in the 16700 block of Southeast Division Street. Knutson told friends he had "just shanked a guy," witnesses told police.
Portland police were called to the area at 10:39 p.m. Wednesday. Someone reported a man in the road who looked as though he was suffering from a seizure. Officers found Henderson dead of stab wounds at the northeast corner of Southeast 162nd Avenue and Main Street.
With the help of a Multnomah County sheriff's deputy, who recognized the description of the suspect as someone who goes by the street name "Rock Head," Portland police located Knutson at the mobile home park about 4:15 a.m. Thursday. Knutson was arraigned on one count of murder Friday.
Portland police say they don't know if Henderson or his friends have any gang connections, but East Precinct officers say they've noticed an increase in European Kindred, and white supremacist affiliated gang violence.
Maxine Bernstein: maxinebernstein@news.oregonian.com
Source: Oregon Live
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Anti-Immigrant Hate Groups Place Ads in The New York Times
Posted in Anti-Immigrant, Nativist Extremist by Sonia Scherr on June 27, 2008
Source: SPLCenter
Next time you find yourself stuck in traffic miles from work—or school or home or daycare—don’t blame poor urban planning, low carpooling rates or inadequate public transportation.
Blame immigrants.
That’s right, according to high-profile ads placed this month in The New York Times and The Nation by a new front group for the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) and two other anti-immigrant hate groups. The ads, which are based on dubious statistical analysis, claim that an immigration-fueled population boom will dramatically worsen traffic congestion and destroy pristine lands.
One ad shows a four-lane highway clogged with vehicles above the caption, “One of America’s Most Popular Pastimes.” The other depicts a bulldozer clearing forest above the words, “One of America’s Best Selling Vehicles.”
The ads were placed by an organization calling itself America’s Leadership Team for Long Range Population-Immigration-Resource Planning. “We’re the nation’s leading experts on population and immigration trends and growth,” boasts one of the ads.
Actually, America’s Leadership Team is a public relations front group for a coalition of five anti-immigration organizations, three of which—FAIR, American Immigration Control Foundation and the Social Contract Press—are listed as hate groups by the Southern Poverty Law Center for their links to white supremacists and publication of bigoted materials.
All five of the groups behind America’s Leadership Team—the other two are Californians for Population Stabilization and NumbersUSA—are financed by John Tanton the puppet master of the modern anti-immigration movement.
American’s Leadership Team launched its ad campaign in early June by placing ads in “major national publications,” according to a news release from Californians for Population Stabilization.
Although it’s not clear how much the coalition paid for its half-page New York Times ad (a Times spokeswoman said there were too many variables to provide rate information), The Nation charges non-profit groups $4,412 for full-page color ads like the ones that the group placed in its magazine this month. Both ads ran at least once in separate issues. In a June 16 editorial note, the left-leaning Nation warned readers about the America’s Leadership Team advertising and stated that The Nation did not agree with its “premise and politics.”
“We’ve gotten a heated reaction, as our readers do when there’s an opinion out that doesn’t seem to mesh with our editorial viewpoint,” Ellen Bollinger, the Nation’s vice president for advertising told the Intelligence Report. “But we have a liberal advertising policy, and we try to err on the side of giving light to divergent opinion.”
It’s not the first time that Tanton and other anti-immigration activists have tried to woo environmentalists in an attempt to gain political support for their cause. In 1996, Tanton lobbied the Sierra Club, the nation’s largest environmental organization, to adopt a plank advocating sharp restrictions on immigration. In 2004, an anti-immigration faction tried to take over the Sierra Club by winning election to its board of directors. Both efforts failed.
The group’s latest campaign relies on outdated numbers, since the ads’ projection of 600 million Americans by 2100 is based on the 1990 Census. (The Census has published more up-to-date projections based on the 2000 Census, but they only go up to 2050.) The ads also cite statistics without fully explaining them: the Pew Hispanic Research Center does predict that 82% of the increase in U.S. population from 2005 to 2050 will result from immigration, but that figure includes the U.S.-born descendants of immigrants. And it doesn’t represent a departure from recent decades, during which immigrants have accounted for most of the country’s population growth.
Of course, the real message of the ads is that immigrants are bad for the environment, and therefore bad for America. According to the ad that appeared in Wednesday’s Times, “For every four new U.S. residents whether from births or immigration, approximately three more cars are added to our roads, increasing gridlock, energy use and greenhouse emissions.”
But this premise is flawed because the transportation habits of immigrants are different from those of native-born Americans, according to professors at the University of California, Los Angeles.
David Hayes-Bautista, a professor of medicine and health services, co-authored a 2005 study that found recent Latino immigrants in California—and to a lesser extent long-term Latino immigrants and U.S.-born Latinos—are much more likely to carpool or use public transportation than non-Hispanic whites. “If everyone (in California) went to work the way recently arrived immigrants did—by carpooling or using public transportation—that would reduce the number of cars on the road by nearly half,” he told the Intelligence Report.
“Recent immigrants are in fact substantially less responsible for sprawl (they live in the highest density communities) and traffic (they disproportionately take transit and walk), as they are poor,” UCLA urban planning professor Randall Crane E-mailed the Report. “Eventually, they better assimilate into the population and will be more like everyone else, which is to say they are no worse than anyone else.”
Source: SPLCenter
Thursday, June 26, 2008
Minutemen Join White Supremacists In ‘Co-Hosted’ Strategy Session
Posted in Anti-Immigrant, Hate Groups, Nativist Extremist, White Supremacist
by Brentin Mock on June 25, 2008
The Council of Conservative Citizens, a white supremacist hate group, publicly announced earlier this week that it was co-hosting an anti-immigration strategy session with Americans4America, the official Las Vegas chapter of Jim Gilchrist’s Minuteman Project.
Despite the Minuteman Project’s oft-touted anti-racist policies, the meeting took place June 24, offering some of the strongest evidence yet of direct ties between the Minuteman movement and overtly racist organizations.
“There’s a lot of overlapping between our two groups,” Nevada CCC leader Don Wassall told the Intelligence Report. “I met a couple of people from their group who are interested in trying to recruit more and get more people active in both of our groups.”
While a June 23 community calendar item placed by the CCC in the Las Vegas Review-Journal listed Americans4America and the CCC as “co-hosts” of the meeting, Wassall told the Report that, in fact, the Minutemen were more like special invited guests.
The relationship between the two organizations is “hard to explain,” said Wassall, but “we are working with them [the Minutemen].”
Wassall said the handful of Minuteman Project members who attended the meeting did not include Americans4America founder Kricket Telfer, who could not be reached for comment. Wassall called Telfer “an acquaintance.”
Like all Minuteman Project chapters, Americans4America declares on its website that it has, “no affiliation with, nor will we accept any assistance by or interference from, separatists, racists, or supremacy groups.”
Commingling with the CCC nullifies that assurance, as does joining forces with Wassall, whose long history of right-wing extremism is beyond dispute. Wassall, who booked the conference room where the joint CCC-Minuteman Project session was held, was the head of the Pennsylvania chapter of the CCC before moving to Las Vegas last December.
Wassall is a longtime member and current executive director of the American Nationalist Union (formerly known as the Populist Party), a radical-right organization started in 1983 by veteran anti-Semite and Holocaust denier Willis Carto. Since 1996 Wassall has been the editor of the group’s publication The Nationalist Times. The periodical’s online version contains blatantly racist articles and links to hate group websites including New Nation News and the Political Cesspool, as well as the International Conspiratological Association.
Wassall was also a prominent supporter of the American Friends of the British National Party, a group formed to raise funds for a neofascist political party in England. The group collapsed after its leader, Mark Cotterill, was deported back to England in the wake of an Intelligence Report exposé.
And now, apparently, he’s backing the Minutemen. Wassall said the next CCC meeting in Las Vegas is planned for the last Tuesday in July, and that it “may or may not” be co-hosted by Americans4America.
Source: SPLCenter
by Brentin Mock on June 25, 2008
The Council of Conservative Citizens, a white supremacist hate group, publicly announced earlier this week that it was co-hosting an anti-immigration strategy session with Americans4America, the official Las Vegas chapter of Jim Gilchrist’s Minuteman Project.
Despite the Minuteman Project’s oft-touted anti-racist policies, the meeting took place June 24, offering some of the strongest evidence yet of direct ties between the Minuteman movement and overtly racist organizations.
“There’s a lot of overlapping between our two groups,” Nevada CCC leader Don Wassall told the Intelligence Report. “I met a couple of people from their group who are interested in trying to recruit more and get more people active in both of our groups.”
While a June 23 community calendar item placed by the CCC in the Las Vegas Review-Journal listed Americans4America and the CCC as “co-hosts” of the meeting, Wassall told the Report that, in fact, the Minutemen were more like special invited guests.
The relationship between the two organizations is “hard to explain,” said Wassall, but “we are working with them [the Minutemen].”
Wassall said the handful of Minuteman Project members who attended the meeting did not include Americans4America founder Kricket Telfer, who could not be reached for comment. Wassall called Telfer “an acquaintance.”
Like all Minuteman Project chapters, Americans4America declares on its website that it has, “no affiliation with, nor will we accept any assistance by or interference from, separatists, racists, or supremacy groups.”
Commingling with the CCC nullifies that assurance, as does joining forces with Wassall, whose long history of right-wing extremism is beyond dispute. Wassall, who booked the conference room where the joint CCC-Minuteman Project session was held, was the head of the Pennsylvania chapter of the CCC before moving to Las Vegas last December.
Wassall is a longtime member and current executive director of the American Nationalist Union (formerly known as the Populist Party), a radical-right organization started in 1983 by veteran anti-Semite and Holocaust denier Willis Carto. Since 1996 Wassall has been the editor of the group’s publication The Nationalist Times. The periodical’s online version contains blatantly racist articles and links to hate group websites including New Nation News and the Political Cesspool, as well as the International Conspiratological Association.
Wassall was also a prominent supporter of the American Friends of the British National Party, a group formed to raise funds for a neofascist political party in England. The group collapsed after its leader, Mark Cotterill, was deported back to England in the wake of an Intelligence Report exposé.
And now, apparently, he’s backing the Minutemen. Wassall said the next CCC meeting in Las Vegas is planned for the last Tuesday in July, and that it “may or may not” be co-hosted by Americans4America.
Source: SPLCenter
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
ACLU Sues Department of Homeland Security For Information on Deaths in Immigration Detention Centers
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 25, 2008
4:48 PM
CONTACT: ACLU
Will Matthews, ACLU,
(212) 549-2582 or 2666;
media@aclu.org
ACLU Sues Department of Homeland Security For Information on Deaths in Immigration Detention Centers
Lawsuit Comes After Repeated Refusals by DHS to Provide Expedient Access to Public Information
WASHINGTON - June 25 - The American Civil Liberties Union today sued the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the DHS Office of the Inspector General (OIG) for refusing to turn over thousands of public documents in their possession detailing the deaths of immigration detainees held in U.S. custody.
The federal lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, comes after repeated rejections by DHS officials of requests by the ACLU for critical information about the deaths of dozens of people in immigration detention.
The lawsuit seeks a court order requiring DHS to expedite the processing of the document request and conduct a reasonable search of the records in its possession in an effort to fully comply with the ACLU’s requests.
“We know that the medical care provided in many immigration detention centers is grossly inadequate and has resulted in unnecessary suffering and death,” said Elizabeth Alexander, Director of the ACLU National Prison Project. “DHS must not be allowed to keep information about in-custody deaths secret. It is imperative that ICE be held publicly accountable when it fails to provide the health care mandated by the U.S. Constitution.”
Deficient medical care is believed to be a leading cause of death in immigration detention, and is the number one complaint the ACLU has received from ICE detainees. The ACLU filed a lawsuit last year against the San Diego Correctional Facility (SDCF), an ICE facility run by Corrections Corporations of America, Inc. (CCA), the country’s largest for-profit correctional services provider. In its lawsuit, the ACLU challenges flawed medical care policies and the denial of needed treatment by ICE and the Division of Immigration Health Services which has led to excruciating suffering and even death of numerous detainees at SDCF.
In its Freedom of Information Act request submitted to DHS last year, the ACLU requested information about whether ICE – or any independent monitoring agency – adequately tracks deaths of immigration detainees, who are often housed in county jails around the country alongside criminal detainees, or in one of numerous immigration detention facilities managed by private prison companies.
Past OIG reports to Congress have contained only vague and sporadic references to investigations into these deaths, and provide little useful information that would ensure the public that meaningful investigations are conducted into each death and that steps are being taken to guarantee that detainees receive necessary medical services before it is too late.
“Unless ICE exhibits full transparency by releasing all of the information that we have requested, we are left little choice but to believe that it has something to hide,” Alexander said.
Attorneys on the case include Tom Jawetz of the ACLU National Prison Project, Judy Rabinovitz of the ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project, New York-based attorneys Natalie N. Kuehler and Benjamin R. Walker and Washington-based attorneys Margaret K. Pfeiffer and Lee Ann Anderson McCall.
A copy of the ACLU lawsuit filed today can be found online at: www.aclu.org/immigrants/detention/35774lgl20080625.html
A copy of the original FOIA request filed by the ACLU can be found online at: www.aclu.org/immigrants/detention/30260res20070627.html
Additional information about the ACLU National Prison Project can be found online at: www.aclu.org/prison/index.html
Source: Common Dreams
June 25, 2008
4:48 PM
CONTACT: ACLU
Will Matthews, ACLU,
(212) 549-2582 or 2666;
media@aclu.org
ACLU Sues Department of Homeland Security For Information on Deaths in Immigration Detention Centers
Lawsuit Comes After Repeated Refusals by DHS to Provide Expedient Access to Public Information
WASHINGTON - June 25 - The American Civil Liberties Union today sued the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the DHS Office of the Inspector General (OIG) for refusing to turn over thousands of public documents in their possession detailing the deaths of immigration detainees held in U.S. custody.
The federal lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, comes after repeated rejections by DHS officials of requests by the ACLU for critical information about the deaths of dozens of people in immigration detention.
The lawsuit seeks a court order requiring DHS to expedite the processing of the document request and conduct a reasonable search of the records in its possession in an effort to fully comply with the ACLU’s requests.
“We know that the medical care provided in many immigration detention centers is grossly inadequate and has resulted in unnecessary suffering and death,” said Elizabeth Alexander, Director of the ACLU National Prison Project. “DHS must not be allowed to keep information about in-custody deaths secret. It is imperative that ICE be held publicly accountable when it fails to provide the health care mandated by the U.S. Constitution.”
Deficient medical care is believed to be a leading cause of death in immigration detention, and is the number one complaint the ACLU has received from ICE detainees. The ACLU filed a lawsuit last year against the San Diego Correctional Facility (SDCF), an ICE facility run by Corrections Corporations of America, Inc. (CCA), the country’s largest for-profit correctional services provider. In its lawsuit, the ACLU challenges flawed medical care policies and the denial of needed treatment by ICE and the Division of Immigration Health Services which has led to excruciating suffering and even death of numerous detainees at SDCF.
In its Freedom of Information Act request submitted to DHS last year, the ACLU requested information about whether ICE – or any independent monitoring agency – adequately tracks deaths of immigration detainees, who are often housed in county jails around the country alongside criminal detainees, or in one of numerous immigration detention facilities managed by private prison companies.
Past OIG reports to Congress have contained only vague and sporadic references to investigations into these deaths, and provide little useful information that would ensure the public that meaningful investigations are conducted into each death and that steps are being taken to guarantee that detainees receive necessary medical services before it is too late.
“Unless ICE exhibits full transparency by releasing all of the information that we have requested, we are left little choice but to believe that it has something to hide,” Alexander said.
Attorneys on the case include Tom Jawetz of the ACLU National Prison Project, Judy Rabinovitz of the ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project, New York-based attorneys Natalie N. Kuehler and Benjamin R. Walker and Washington-based attorneys Margaret K. Pfeiffer and Lee Ann Anderson McCall.
A copy of the ACLU lawsuit filed today can be found online at: www.aclu.org/immigrants/detention/35774lgl20080625.html
A copy of the original FOIA request filed by the ACLU can be found online at: www.aclu.org/immigrants/detention/30260res20070627.html
Additional information about the ACLU National Prison Project can be found online at: www.aclu.org/prison/index.html
Source: Common Dreams
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Today’s Illegals ‘Not Different, Just Newer’
by: Melinda Zosh, June 23, 2008
In 1750, Benjamin Franklin feared that German immigrants would de-Anglicize America. And 250 years later, in a nation where one in six young people under 18 are Hispanic, some politicians fear that Mexicans pose the same threat.
But one man says today’s immigrants aren’t “different, they’re just newer.”
Jason Riley, author of The Case for Open Borders, spoke at the CATO Institute on June 18 about letting more immigrants into the country. His research shows that Irish and German immigrants faced the same problems as today’s Mexicans.
“Franklin complained that German immigrants were too plentiful,” said Riley. “Franklin was one of most enlightened men of his day, [but] he lacked perspective.”
Riley said that Americans limit their perspectives and fear that new immigrants won’t assimilate. But the Irish did and “if America can assimilate the Irish, we can [assimilate] anybody.”
“The Irish were coming from a country where more than 80 percent of their country was rural…,” said Riley. “They were told they would never assimilate [into] an urban capitalist society.”
The Irish ended up settling in the most urban areas—Boston and New York. Riley said that “supply created its own demand.”
“The Irish did jobs that were considered even too lowly for slaves. They worked in mines,” said Riley. “In 1855, 90 percent of all domestic servants were Irish. That’s a snapshot of where the Irish started.”
Riley, a member of the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board, reminded the audience that Henry Ford was the product of poor Irish immigrants. And other sons and daughters of the Irish servants are successful today, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
“The [2000] Census showed that 31% of Irish Americans had at least a bachelor’s degree compared to 27% of Americans,” said Riley. “This history is often ignored or played down when we discuss illegal [immigrants] today.”
Riley argued that the free market and the law of supply and demand should determine how many immigrants are needed in America.
“We will reduce illegal immigration if we give people more legal ways to enter the country,” said Riley “We have the jobs. They need the work. Let them come legally and they will come legally.”
Political analyst Michael Barone said that the elites are keeping the immigrants away.
“Our elites have been putting barriers in the way of immigration,” said Barone. “Ultimately, the good sense of the people overwhelms the nonsense of the elites.”
Some legislators are hesitant to give more visas, because they don’t want to give away jobs, Riley said.
“It’s a fallacy; there aren’t a fixed number of jobs. We have a very fluid labor market,” said Riley. “At the low end of the spectrum, where many blacks are, you do have overlap, [but] the data isn’t there to support that blacks are being pushed aside.”
Melinda Zosh is an intern at the American Journalism Center, a training program run by Accuracy in Media and Accuracy in Academia.
If you would like to comment on this article, please e-mail mal.kline@academia.org
Source: CampusReportOnline
In 1750, Benjamin Franklin feared that German immigrants would de-Anglicize America. And 250 years later, in a nation where one in six young people under 18 are Hispanic, some politicians fear that Mexicans pose the same threat.
But one man says today’s immigrants aren’t “different, they’re just newer.”
Jason Riley, author of The Case for Open Borders, spoke at the CATO Institute on June 18 about letting more immigrants into the country. His research shows that Irish and German immigrants faced the same problems as today’s Mexicans.
“Franklin complained that German immigrants were too plentiful,” said Riley. “Franklin was one of most enlightened men of his day, [but] he lacked perspective.”
Riley said that Americans limit their perspectives and fear that new immigrants won’t assimilate. But the Irish did and “if America can assimilate the Irish, we can [assimilate] anybody.”
“The Irish were coming from a country where more than 80 percent of their country was rural…,” said Riley. “They were told they would never assimilate [into] an urban capitalist society.”
The Irish ended up settling in the most urban areas—Boston and New York. Riley said that “supply created its own demand.”
“The Irish did jobs that were considered even too lowly for slaves. They worked in mines,” said Riley. “In 1855, 90 percent of all domestic servants were Irish. That’s a snapshot of where the Irish started.”
Riley, a member of the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board, reminded the audience that Henry Ford was the product of poor Irish immigrants. And other sons and daughters of the Irish servants are successful today, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
“The [2000] Census showed that 31% of Irish Americans had at least a bachelor’s degree compared to 27% of Americans,” said Riley. “This history is often ignored or played down when we discuss illegal [immigrants] today.”
Riley argued that the free market and the law of supply and demand should determine how many immigrants are needed in America.
“We will reduce illegal immigration if we give people more legal ways to enter the country,” said Riley “We have the jobs. They need the work. Let them come legally and they will come legally.”
Political analyst Michael Barone said that the elites are keeping the immigrants away.
“Our elites have been putting barriers in the way of immigration,” said Barone. “Ultimately, the good sense of the people overwhelms the nonsense of the elites.”
Some legislators are hesitant to give more visas, because they don’t want to give away jobs, Riley said.
“It’s a fallacy; there aren’t a fixed number of jobs. We have a very fluid labor market,” said Riley. “At the low end of the spectrum, where many blacks are, you do have overlap, [but] the data isn’t there to support that blacks are being pushed aside.”
Melinda Zosh is an intern at the American Journalism Center, a training program run by Accuracy in Media and Accuracy in Academia.
If you would like to comment on this article, please e-mail mal.kline@academia.org
Source: CampusReportOnline
Sunday, June 22, 2008
ALIPAC: Two Dozen Strong!
By kyledeb on June 20, 2008 1:11 AM
William Gheen, President of ALIPAC, truly is the leader of a national movement. A movement of two dozen people that is.
It was May of 2008 when ALIPAC announced the launch of a North Carolina "campaign to thwart illegal aliens and their supporters". Soon after they bullied a local Charlotte newspaper columnist, Mary Schulken, for writing an article entitled "This Tide of Meanness has to Stop". All of it building up to a big rally to pressure North Carolina legislators to support a horrific "attrition through enforcement" agenda. Here's how the rally went:
North Carolina legislators must be shaking in their boots.
Brittanicus, a retiree who therefore can "spend ample time getting [ALIPAC's] message out", offers an explanation for the poor showing in the comments:
Profiles in courage, anyone?
Let's contrast this fear of fictitious gang members, with what migrants and their supporters went through to march on May 1st of this year:
Roberto Lovato has a good piece on this, too, entitled, "Still They March: Nationwide Rallies Highlight Failure of War on Immigrants". While the "national" group ALIPAC struggles to get more than 30 people to show up, the pro-migrant movement was able to get 30,000 people to show up just in Wisconsin. That's right, 1000 to 1.
Let's not forget to mention that one of those two dozen people at the rally was a law-breaker himself, Chris Simcox. Rep. John Blust, R-Guilford, says "the people coming into the country should have to follow the law" at the same time that he speaks alongside someone who was arrested for federal weapons charges.
This is just another lesson. Though self-proclaimed "anti-illegal immigration groups" are loud, they are a small and increasingly irrelevent minority. If retirees like Brittanicus are any indication, most of them probably spend more time commenting on immigration articles than anything else. They are William Gheen's 80-year-old "internet fighter pilots", who spend all of their time writing nativist comments online, at the same time that they are sustained by social security and the billions of dollars that migrants pay into it.
Source: Citizen Orange
William Gheen, President of ALIPAC, truly is the leader of a national movement. A movement of two dozen people that is.
It was May of 2008 when ALIPAC announced the launch of a North Carolina "campaign to thwart illegal aliens and their supporters". Soon after they bullied a local Charlotte newspaper columnist, Mary Schulken, for writing an article entitled "This Tide of Meanness has to Stop". All of it building up to a big rally to pressure North Carolina legislators to support a horrific "attrition through enforcement" agenda. Here's how the rally went:
Immigration Rally in Raleigh Draws Sparse Crowd
RALEIGH - About two dozen people gathered in Raleigh on Wednesday to encourage state lawmakers to do their part in supporting immigration enforcement measures and to make North Carolina a less-attractive state for illegal immigrants.
North Carolina legislators must be shaking in their boots.
Brittanicus, a retiree who therefore can "spend ample time getting [ALIPAC's] message out", offers an explanation for the poor showing in the comments:
Is it any wonder that legal residents or citizens, will not attract attention of radical organizations from third world countries, by protesting[?] In California your marked for death by gang members who are protected by 'Sanctuary laws' like Special Order 40.
Profiles in courage, anyone?
Let's contrast this fear of fictitious gang members, with what migrants and their supporters went through to march on May 1st of this year:
Migrantshave survived the most powerful government in the world spending billions to stamp out their existence. They have survived thousands of raids terrorizing their communities and breaking apart their families. They have survived the hordes of nativists that have given up on mass deportation and settled instead on attrition warfare, in an attempt to make life so miserable for migrants that they leave on their own.
Roberto Lovato has a good piece on this, too, entitled, "Still They March: Nationwide Rallies Highlight Failure of War on Immigrants". While the "national" group ALIPAC struggles to get more than 30 people to show up, the pro-migrant movement was able to get 30,000 people to show up just in Wisconsin. That's right, 1000 to 1.
Let's not forget to mention that one of those two dozen people at the rally was a law-breaker himself, Chris Simcox. Rep. John Blust, R-Guilford, says "the people coming into the country should have to follow the law" at the same time that he speaks alongside someone who was arrested for federal weapons charges.
This is just another lesson. Though self-proclaimed "anti-illegal immigration groups" are loud, they are a small and increasingly irrelevent minority. If retirees like Brittanicus are any indication, most of them probably spend more time commenting on immigration articles than anything else. They are William Gheen's 80-year-old "internet fighter pilots", who spend all of their time writing nativist comments online, at the same time that they are sustained by social security and the billions of dollars that migrants pay into it.
Source: Citizen Orange
Friday, June 20, 2008
Lawman's raids on immigrants spark fury in Phoenix
By David Schwartz
PHOENIX (Reuters) - Frustrated by a steady flow of illegal Mexican immigrants into Arizona, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio has decided to take matters into his own hands.
Arpaio dispatches teams of sheriff's deputies into Hispanic communities where they stop people and arrest anyone who cannot prove he or she is a legal U.S. resident.
Now he faces an onslaught of criticism from Hispanic activists, local lawmakers and the Phoenix mayor, who call his crackdown on immigrants a clear case of racial profiling in which only people who look Hispanic are targeted.
"What right does a mayor or a police chief, or anyone like that, have to tell me what my priorities are?" Arpaio said in a recent interview. "I'm the elected sheriff. I tell them what their priorities are."
But Mary Rose Wilcox, a county supervisor and longtime Hispanic activist says, "All he is doing is going after everybody with a brown face."
"There's no doubt in my mind that this is racial profiling. None."
Across the country, state and local officials have taken steps to curb illegal immigration. More than 240 immigration-related measures were passed last year.
Arpaio says he has received an outpouring of support for his effort in the form of letters and donations of about $25,000 from the public to help fund the initiative.
Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon said the sheriff's "made-for-TV stunts" have not stopped illegal immigration and violate the basic civil rights afforded all people in the United States.
"It's a single standard," Gordon said. "If you're brown, you're going to be pulled over, and if you're white, you're not. It's as simple as that."
Under the U.S. Constitution, all citizens must be treated equally under the law and the government cannot conduct unreasonable searches and seizures without probable cause.
In April, Gordon sent a letter to the U.S. Attorney General calling for an investigation into Arpaio's patrols.
U.S. Justice Department officials are "monitoring the situation," department spokeswoman Jamie Hais said. She declined to be more specific.
LACK OF LEADERSHIP
Immigration, specifically what do about 12 million illegal immigrants living in the United States, is a divisive issue, but it has largely dropped out of the political debate this election year.
A bid to push a comprehensive immigration overhaul through Congress was nixed by Republican lawmakers last year and the issue is barely mentioned by Republican presidential candidate John McCain or Democratic rival Barack Obama, who both supported the U.S. Senate bill.
In the absence of federal action, states and localities are beginning to take action.
Despite criticism, Arpaio has vowed to continue his patrols and other measures designed to stem the flow of illegal immigrants.
"They just don't want me enforcing the illegal immigration laws. They think they can intimidate me. They can't," said Arpaio, a Republican, who is running for re-election in November.
Gordon said Arpaio should spend his time and limited resources pursuing other more serious criminals like drug and human traffickers, and violent criminals.
The mayor said Arpaio's tactics have not reduced crime in the region or curbed illegal immigration. Instead, Gordon says the sheriff has soured community relations and sparked fear among Hispanic citizens and immigrants.
"His Band-Aid publicity stunts aren't going to solve illegal immigration," he said. "It doesn't do anything to stop the flow. All it does is make for good TV."
(Editing by Tim Gaynor and Mary Milliken)
Source: Reuters
PHOENIX (Reuters) - Frustrated by a steady flow of illegal Mexican immigrants into Arizona, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio has decided to take matters into his own hands.
Arpaio dispatches teams of sheriff's deputies into Hispanic communities where they stop people and arrest anyone who cannot prove he or she is a legal U.S. resident.
Now he faces an onslaught of criticism from Hispanic activists, local lawmakers and the Phoenix mayor, who call his crackdown on immigrants a clear case of racial profiling in which only people who look Hispanic are targeted.
"What right does a mayor or a police chief, or anyone like that, have to tell me what my priorities are?" Arpaio said in a recent interview. "I'm the elected sheriff. I tell them what their priorities are."
But Mary Rose Wilcox, a county supervisor and longtime Hispanic activist says, "All he is doing is going after everybody with a brown face."
"There's no doubt in my mind that this is racial profiling. None."
Across the country, state and local officials have taken steps to curb illegal immigration. More than 240 immigration-related measures were passed last year.
Arpaio says he has received an outpouring of support for his effort in the form of letters and donations of about $25,000 from the public to help fund the initiative.
Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon said the sheriff's "made-for-TV stunts" have not stopped illegal immigration and violate the basic civil rights afforded all people in the United States.
"It's a single standard," Gordon said. "If you're brown, you're going to be pulled over, and if you're white, you're not. It's as simple as that."
Under the U.S. Constitution, all citizens must be treated equally under the law and the government cannot conduct unreasonable searches and seizures without probable cause.
In April, Gordon sent a letter to the U.S. Attorney General calling for an investigation into Arpaio's patrols.
U.S. Justice Department officials are "monitoring the situation," department spokeswoman Jamie Hais said. She declined to be more specific.
LACK OF LEADERSHIP
Immigration, specifically what do about 12 million illegal immigrants living in the United States, is a divisive issue, but it has largely dropped out of the political debate this election year.
A bid to push a comprehensive immigration overhaul through Congress was nixed by Republican lawmakers last year and the issue is barely mentioned by Republican presidential candidate John McCain or Democratic rival Barack Obama, who both supported the U.S. Senate bill.
In the absence of federal action, states and localities are beginning to take action.
Despite criticism, Arpaio has vowed to continue his patrols and other measures designed to stem the flow of illegal immigrants.
"They just don't want me enforcing the illegal immigration laws. They think they can intimidate me. They can't," said Arpaio, a Republican, who is running for re-election in November.
Gordon said Arpaio should spend his time and limited resources pursuing other more serious criminals like drug and human traffickers, and violent criminals.
The mayor said Arpaio's tactics have not reduced crime in the region or curbed illegal immigration. Instead, Gordon says the sheriff has soured community relations and sparked fear among Hispanic citizens and immigrants.
"His Band-Aid publicity stunts aren't going to solve illegal immigration," he said. "It doesn't do anything to stop the flow. All it does is make for good TV."
(Editing by Tim Gaynor and Mary Milliken)
Source: Reuters
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